Scam Inc

First-time listeners to the Economist’s Scam Inc. may not yet know the term “pig butchering.” Part of that obscurity may be that the embarrassed victims of pig-butchering scams don’t want to speak out. The term refers to being bled dry of resources by anonymous chat partners who siphon funds into shadowy global systems. Scam Inc. host Sue-Lin Wong breaks the silence, speaking with sympathy and probing curiosity to individuals on both sides of the scam. As in the way of any story worth reporting at length, it’s more complicated than it seems, and Wong ably shows how those doing the butchering are themselves victims, held captive and forced to generate income for organizations that trade on their employees’ naivete, and their need. Through personal stories—from a small-town bank president’s fall from grace to one woman’s daring escape from a scammers’ compound—Wong diagnoses a problem of increasing urgency. For raising awareness of a financial and humanitarian crisis, and for leveraging the podcast format to expand that story across the world and make it feel truly close to home, Scam Inc. wins a Peabody Award.