From Sextortion to Crypto Crime, FRONTLINE’s Season Premiere Investigates Online Scams with the AP

Scammed

Watch the documentary starting Sept. 29, 2026, at 9/8c on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, or stream it starting at 7/6c at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App. Scammed will also be available on PBS Documentaries on Prime Video.

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Millions of Americans have fallen victim to a growing epidemic of online scams — from sextortion schemes aimed at teens, to crypto investment scams targeting seniors.

What’s behind the rise of these scams, and why do so few people ever get their money back? 

FRONTLINE and The Associated Press have spent more than a year investigating the shadowy world of online scams, and how this global criminal industry is stealing billions of dollars each year. The resulting documentary, Scammed, kicks off FRONTLINE’s 45th season of investigative documentaries on PBS. Premiering Tues., Sept. 29, on PBS stations at a special time, 9/8c, Scammed will also be available to stream online. 

From an award-winning team that includes director Peter Klein and reporters Erika Kinetz, Juliet Linderman and Martha Mendoza, the documentary goes inside the explosive growth of an industry powered in many cases by organized crime, trafficked labor, American technology, and, increasingly, AI — and how governments and law enforcement have tried to keep pace.

“It’s being done at a scale that we have never seen and never even anticipated,” Erin West, a former U.S. prosecutor who worked on a special unit with the FBI and Secret Service focused on cybercrime, says in the documentary.

Drawing on interviews with perpetrators, victims and officials, as well as thousands of never-before-seen documents, Scammed pieces together a picture of the global scam industry — from sextortion scams based in Nigeria, to massive “scam compounds” in Southeast Asia that rely on human trafficking for labor — and the underlying technologies and platforms being used to scam victims in the U.S. and worldwide. 

“What we’re seeing here is the scaling of fraud, the industrialization of fraud,” says Ari Redbord of TRM Labs, which tracks cryptocurrency crime.

Scammed is part of a multiplatform investigation that also includes ongoing, in-depth text stories and Inside the Scam, a digital interactive that takes users inside four different types of scams, explores tactics used to manipulate victims, and shares red flags to watch out for. All told, the joint investigation offers an urgent and essential look at the online scam industry, the people and technology enabling it, its impact on victims, and the status of efforts to shut it down.

Online scams are “a global menace that we all have to fight together,” Michael Wetkas, who helped lead an anti-scamming operation for Nigeria’s economic and financial crimes commission, says in Scammed. “All of us are potential victims.”

Scammed will be available to watch starting Sept. 29, 2026, at 9/8c on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, and at 7/6c at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App. Scammed will also be available on PBS Documentaries on Prime Video. Subscribe to FRONTLINE’s newsletter to get updates on events, podcasts and additional reporting related to Scammed. 

Credits

Scammed is a FRONTLINE Production with Peter Klein Productions in association with The Associated Press. The writer, producer and director is Peter Klein. The co-producers are Megan Robinson and Boris Ivanov. The reporters are Erika Kinetz, Juliet Linderman and Martha Mendoza. The senior producers are Frank Koughan and Eamonn Matthews. The managing editor of FRONTLINE is Andrew Metz. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

About FRONTLINE

FRONTLINE, U.S. television’s longest running investigative documentary series, explores the issues of our times through powerful storytelling. FRONTLINE has won an Academy Award® as well as every major journalism and broadcasting award, including 113 Emmy Awards and 35 Peabody Awards. Visit pbs.org/frontline and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to learn more. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with major support from Ford Foundation, and the Fialkow Family Foundation. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Trust, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and Corey David Sauer, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen, and Laura DeBonis and Scott Nathan. 

About AP The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business. More than half the world’s population sees AP journalism every day. Online: www.ap.org

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The Associated Press | mediarelations@ap.org