Romance scams have become increasingly sophisticated, with scammers using fake identities, AI-generated videos and images, and emotional manipulation to gain their victims’ trust. In National Geographic’s upcoming documentary Super Scam Me, award-winning investigative journalist Mariana van Zeller takes an unconventional approach to understanding these scams: she puts herself in the position of a potential victim.
With the help of reformed hacker Arman the Cyber, van Zeller investigates the people behind these schemes and explores just how far scammers will go to manipulate their targets.
I recently spoke with Arman the Cyber about his work on Super Scam Me, how he first got interested in hacking, and the chance meeting with van Zeller that got him involved with the documentary.
And as scammers find new ways to target their victims, Arman shared why awareness is one of the most important tools we have to protect ourselves and the people we care about.
Nerds and Beyond: This documentary touches on your background and how you got interested in hacking at a young age, so what about it grabbed your attention so young?
Arman the Cyber: That’s a great question. I just loved video games, so it was pretty simple: learn hacking to get more video games. It was an equation.
Nerds and Beyond: I know you mentioned that in the show. Can you tell me a little bit more about how you got involved with the show? It shows how you and Mariana met at a cybersecurity convention, but I was wondering if there’s more to that backstory.
Arman the Cyber: Yeah, that’s definitely genuine in how it happened. We met at DEF CON, which is a cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas. [It’s] one of the biggest hacker conferences. She found me while I was just chillin’ and started asking me some questions. I was just demo-ing what I knew and what I could do. And one thing turned into another, and we got mic’d up pretty fast. She told me she was working on a project where she wanted to get scammed herself. And I was really interested.
Nerds and Beyond: So it was all just kind of happenstance.
Arman the Cyber: Yeah, it was.
Nerds and Beyond: Cool! And you kind of just touched on this, but with Mariana putting herself in the position of a potential victim, was there anything that you were concerned about, or particularly wanted to protect her from?
Arman the Cyber: Yeah, my biggest concern was people just figuring out it was her. That would be a big giveaway, you know? At first, she was like, “Yeah, I’m just gonna post myself.” And I was like, “Somebody’s gonna Google search your image and see that it’s you pretty easily!” So she created this really cool character, Mary Zell, and ran with it.
Nerds and Beyond: I would say most people encounter scams online. Some people engage with them, as we see in the documentary, and other people ignore them. For those people who do ignore them, I feel like it’s kind of like a, “Oh, that’s something that happens to ‘other people.’” So what do you want audiences to understand about why this works? Why do people engage?
Arman the Cyber: Yeah, even if you might not engage, you’ll know somebody that will engage, and so it’s on you being that person that’s aware to educate them. It’s like a chain reaction: we just want to educate as [many] people as possible because that’s the most impact you can have.
Nerds and Beyond: What are some of the misconceptions about scams or people who fall for them that you kind of wish you could change?
Arman the Cyber: A lot of people think they’re too smart to fall for them, which is really not the case.
Nerds and Beyond: One thing that kind of struck me is how many of the targets, especially in this documentary – because it focuses on romance scams specifically – are women. It seems like scammers exploit the social conditioning of women to be polite and accommodating. And we tend to think of cybersecurity vulnerabilities as, like, weak passwords or security flaws. So I’d love to hear your thoughts on how scammers exploit human vulnerabilities and our willingness to trust.
Arman the Cyber: Yeah, absolutely. One thing we touched on in the documentary was love bombing, which is just constantly messaging [someone], and that actually submits a dopamine receptor in your brain. [People] may not realize it, but they love that, and they get addicted to it. So, when it’s coming to them, they may not even realize it, but that’s the attack that [scammers] are using.
Nerds and Beyond: So when you yourself are looking at a potential scam, what do you notice that you think the average person would not?
Arman the Cyber: I can immediately tell if somebody’s talking genuinely or not. Like if they’re using a translator or some type of AI, I can detect that without needing to Google or see anything. Just with my eye, I’m really good at it.
Nerds and Beyond: Yeah, I want to talk about AI later, because the show kind of touches on it, too. So, kind of with you being able to see these things, what do you think are some of the ways that people can protect themselves?
Arman the Cyber: Oh, great question. Being extra aware. And I would never do anything with Bitcoin. If you don’t know anything about Bitcoin, it’s a pretty big red flag. So, if you know somebody who shouldn’t be involved in Bitcoin and is unaware, and they’re doing something with Bitcoin, it’s a good red flag to go and investigate.
Nerds and Beyond: Yeah, I know nothing about Bitcoin, and I will not be involved. So now you’re working in cybersecurity as one of the good guys. How has that changed your relationship with technology?
Arman the Cyber: It hasn’t really changed my relationship. I’m still a curious hacker who still likes to poke around. The only difference is when I find something, I let them know immediately.
Nerds and Beyond: So how has your background in hacking affected the way that you look at scammers themselves? Like, how are you able to approach scammers differently with your background?
Arman the Cyber: I know what scammers will fall for, [using] their human emotions and the way that they prey on people. I can do the Uno Reverse and understand what a scammer will fall for, what they really want, or what will trick their brain into giving me what access I want.
Nerds and Beyond: Yeah, you pulled some tricks in the show.
Arman the Cyber: I did.
Nerds and Beyond: So like I said, we were talking about AI earlier. I feel like as AI has made it easier to make these convincing voices and images and stuff like that – like the videos that were shown in the show – what do you think scamming is going to look like in the future? Like I said, we saw a lot of it already in the documentary.
Arman the Cyber: Yeah, I think what we’re going to see is a big shift [in] AI detection. Hopefully. Let’s say you send a photo on something like WhatsApp or Instagram. In the future, what we are going to hopefully see is that the platform will alert you that that photo is AI before you even have to digest it. And it’s going to do that through hidden watermarks in these image generators like ChatGPT and Claude. When you generate an image, it’s going to hide something in there that you can’t actually see with your eye, but the computers can. So that’s the goal, and that’s where we’re headed. And I think hopefully we’re going to get there pretty soon.
Nerds and Beyond: Yeah, some of the videos that they showed in Super Scam Me, like the Bon Jovi video or the George Clooney video, I immediately was like, oh, that’s fake.
Arman the Cyber: Right. And for some people, it’s beyond their wildest imagination that you can do that. But for people that understand that you can do that, then [they’re] like, “Oh, it’s fake.”
Nerds and Beyond: So tying this all together, what do you hope audiences take away from Super Scam Me?
Arman the Cyber: I hope that they just become aware of the scams that are out there, and to share this episode with everybody you can because it may not be you that’s scammed, but it’s somebody close to you that will be scammed.
Super Scam Me premieres October 17 on National Geographic, and the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
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