 Look, I can tell you that the phones have been running hot all over Australia. My counterparts in the fraud and high-tech crime areas across the country have been inundated with inquiries and concerned people, feeling that the message that went out, threatening to take their lives, if they didn't part with money, was directed to them personally. And the message, of course, is that is not the case, that these crooks have directed on mass to people, to the communities of Australia, and it certainly has concerned a lot of people. It would be thousands across the country easily. You've got to bear in mind that we know from experience that you're lucky to get one in fifty victims of a crime like this actually make a report to authorities. And the fact that hundreds of calls have been made, our phone's been going all day, and I know that's been the case in the state, is extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary. Do you know where the texts are originating from? We're still making inquiries. We know that we've had the, when I say we, collectively law enforcement Australia. The email account has been taken down. We're making some inquiries. The IP address looks like we used a gateway in Queensland, and we're looking at further inquiries to establish, was it a person in Australia who actually instigated this matter in the first instance? Will you just get John Tape saying what the actual scam is? Sure, look, thousands of people we expect around Australia have received a text message essentially stating that they will be killed if they don't pay up $5,000 and to make contact with a Yahoo email address. I've noticed that the scams sort of first surfaced in about 2007. Were there people who actually did pay up the money, do you know at that time? Yeah, look, people have paid money in the past, absolutely. This has been a successful scam. People are so frightened and shocked that they'll protect their family at all cost, and they actually have parted with money in the past. And the crooks know this, and they know it's been successful. What is extraordinary in these circumstances is the extent of contact across the Australian landscape. We've never seen this before, I've never seen this before, to have so many people contacted at one time. We are one of the most connected societies on the planet. 80% of the Australian public is connected to the internet. We have a great appetite for smartphone technology, and everyone's got a phone. But what we've seen, what that tells us is that the crooks have an extraordinary level or quantity of Australian consumer data that they're exploiting. And I've never seen it to this scale that has occurred today. If you do find it is someone in Australia, what charges are they likely to be faced? Well, we assess all the circumstances at the time, but certainly there'd be federal legislation, probably legislation, and ACMA attempted fraud. We've got to look at, did they actually receive any money? Who has actually fallen victim and part with the cash? Not only the cash, but if they responded to the email, there's every chance they've surrendered their identity information. What is the long-term consequences of that that's going to carry with them for years to come? Because we know an identity is worth money to these criminals. What should people do if they do receive that email or text message, or what should they not do? Look, do not respond, delete it immediately, and don't panic, because that's what they pray upon. That's what they take great joy in getting you to panic and respond. As a consequence, you surrender your identity, you surrender your finances, and it's nothing but trouble from that point forward. How would people go about getting hold of obviously such a large database without obviously detailing exactly how they do it? You say you surprise the sheer numbers. Is this a group of databases that they've been able to access? And is there something people can do to stop themselves from getting these messages in the future? The reality is we've been surrendering our details online, and it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. The reality is we've been surrendering our details online and to the internet and having them hacked and acquired for the last decade easily. And we know that cyber criminals have industrialized the process of harvesting our details and selling them as databases to other criminals. So it's not a case of them hacking a specific database necessarily, but simply going and paying for it. And they don't have to have to set up themselves. They can go into a dark market or an industrialized underworld and just pay someone to actually send out all the emails or send out all the texts as a trade work done. There isn't like a do not call register with Kelly Marcus or something. People are just going to have to put up with this in the future. That's right. We know sometimes a lot of the calls that we get made through voice systems, voice internet protocols, so using the internet to make the phone calls. They're on, it's almost a computer system and it'll just randomly dial the next number and the next number and the next number. It's self-generation, self-populates, and it goes on for some time. But this, as I said before, is quite extraordinary in the breadth and the speed of the attack upon the Australian communities. You said you found an IP address here within Queensland. It's the same usual. Would you not expect something like this to come from overseas? Well, in the first instance, yes, I would expect to be overseas. But by the same token, we know that any good crook is actually going to use a proxy server or what we call a zombie computer. So they won't use their computer to make that contact to take out the registration of a new email account that they want to commit crimes with. They'll use a compromised computer. And I expect or wouldn't be surprised if that was the case at this time. A Yahoo email address is something we've typified with a lot of frauds coming out of places such as Nigeria. And that was what was used at this point in time, so Tom will tell. You still think it may be aboriginated from overseas? I would expect so. All the past experience tells us when we've seen these frauds occur previously that the money has always gone overseas. And just again, you don't know of anyone that's been caught out? Not yet. What if someone has fallen victim to it and has paid money? They need to report it to the police immediately, so the necessary inquirers can be put in the train. We have some great relationships with overseas agencies. We've used the resources of the AFP, their liaison office and network around the globe to actually get to the information and make inquirers and investigations. Should they bring the bank and try and stop the payment? I would suspect that the $5,000 will have been asked to be transferred in cash. If it has gone electronically through a bank, absolutely contact the bank to stop the payment, but I would be surprised if that's the case. You still don't want to bring all that just-deleted message to contact any informed police, or are you happy just to delete it? No, just delete it, but by all means, probably the best point of contact to get the greatest awareness of how significant this has been across the Australian landscape is go to Scamwatch at the ACCC and register their information there. Is this the largest of en masse scam that you've come across? Certainly in the time frame, what we've seen today across the country to get the sheer level of public response that we've encountered today I've never seen before. What's your message for the people responsible? Maybe I can't put a say to the prints going, but... How would you describe them? Yeah, I nearly said to someone that, oh, no, don't say that, Bron, don't say that. No, look, the message is that, you know, you will be held accountable. You rip off people in Australia, in Queensland, in New South Wales, in Victoria, in South Australia, you will be held called to account. You know, as I said, we've gone to pains and lengths to establish good international relations. We have secured prosecutions, convictions in other countries where these scammers have ripped off our communities, and will continue to well work in that regard. Sorry, was there another question after that? How would you describe these scammers and these scammers? Psychopaths. I mean, they're absolutely the pure sociopath. They don't care in any way whatsoever the anxiety, the fear, the detriment they cause to any person. They simply want your money, and they'll do anything to get it. And if that causes you a great deal of panic, so be it. In fact, that's what they rely upon. They rely upon your fear to not think logically, but to respond in the manner in which they want you to. Who might you think will fall for it? Will it be, like, an elderly person, or who might fall for it? A senior person is very likely to fall for it. Someone who is new to the internet, new to... Just might sound strange, but have got a phone that don't normally get too many text messages, other than from loved ones, so that they're not texting all the time, such as some of our young people. People that don't have the experience of getting too many text messages. And what they do is they think it's personally delivered to them, which is what they want you to think. So those people are the ones that are more likely to respond than other or someone who has been there for a much longer period of time and is less likely to respond. This is from a predominantly text message. I know in the original release, it's where we've mentioned e-mails as well. Yeah, I think the e-mail is... We've seen it e-mails, but mostly today has been text messages. There were some references. And one was that we've seen in the past. We've seen both. We've seen Hitman e-mails and Hitman text messages. We have seen both. I wouldn't have seen the Hitman probably for about 18 months. And then you look even then probably 12 months before that. It's almost like it's going in waves and cycles. And I expect it will come out again and re-emerge sometime in the future. The reality is this is not a random event. This is organized crime. It's not a one person just having a crack at something. They've done their research. They've acquired their contact lists. They've paid for the distribution of the text messages. To respond to that, you think of the sheer volume of messages they've sent out. They then got to have the support to be able to respond to the e-mails, to facilitate the frauds. This is not just a single person. This is an organization. This is very much a corporate approach to how they're doing business. They will look at the return on investment. They'll look at how much they had to expend to actually facilitate this fraud. And was it worthwhile to do it again? If it is, they'll do it again in the future. Would you be surprised there's a number of people that already have all in the coming days made for victims of this fraud? I would expect people who have fallen victim already to this fraud. Those previous ones, like back in 2007-2008, did anyone ever find out where they originated from? It went back previously. We'll go back to West Africa.