ANDY GREENBERG THE BIG STORY JAN 27, 2026 6:00 AM He Leaked the Secrets of a Southeast Asian Scam Compound. Then He Had to Get Out Alive A source trapped inside an industrial-scale scamming operation contacted me, determined to expose his captors’ crimes—and then escape. This is his story. PLAY/PAUSE BUTTON MOTION GRAPHICS: THEO TAGHOLM; SHUTTERSTOCK You Might Also Like In your inbox: Sign up for our new Tracker: ICE newsletter TikTok now collects even more of your data Big Story: ICE pretends it’s a military force, but it would get soldiers killed Microdosing for depression works about as well as drinking coffee Watch: We raced in exoskeletons to see if they actually help Andy Greenberg is a senior writer for WIRED covering hacking, cybersecurity, and surveillance. He’s the author of the books Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency and Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers. His books ... Read More SENIOR WRITER TOPICS LONGREADS CRYPTOCURRENCY BITCOIN SCAMS CRIME READ MORE How to Film ICE Filming federal agents in public is legal, but avoiding a dangerous—even deadly—confrontation isn’t guaranteed. Here’s how to record ICE and CBP agents as safely as possible and have an impact. MADDY VARNER ICE Pretends It’s a Military Force. Its Tactics Would Get Real Soldiers Killed WIRED asked an active military officer to break down immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis and elsewhere. JOHN PUBLIUS The Tech Elites in the Epstein Files The Department of Justice has released more than 3 million documents and photos related to Jeffrey Epstein. Here’s who shows up from Big Tech the most often—and what the files reveal. BRIAN BARRETT How AI Companies Got Caught Up in US Military Efforts Two years ago, companies like Meta and OpenAI were united against military use of their tools. Now all of that has changed. NICK SRNICEK Why ICE Can Kill With Impunity Over the past decade, US immigration agents have shot and killed more than two dozen people. Not a single agent appears to have faced criminal charges. LILA HASSAN Roblox’s AI-Powered Age Verification Is a Complete Mess Kids are being identified as adults—and vice versa—on Roblox, while age-verified accounts are already being sold online. DAVID GILBERT Revealed: Leaked Chats Expose the Daily Life of a Scam Compound’s Enslaved Workforce A whistleblower trapped inside a “pig butchering” scam compound gave WIRED a vast trove of its internal materials—including 4,200 pages of messages that lay out its operations in unprecedented detail. MATT BURGESS Redditors Are Mounting a Resistance Against ICE A user from r/Minneapolis was among the first to share footage of federal agents shooting Alex Pretti. Following his death, subreddits about football, cats, and embroidery have all rallied against ICE. KAT TENBARGE The State-Led Crackdown on Grok and xAI Has Begun At least 37 attorneys general for US states and territories are taking action against xAI after Grok generated a flood of nonconsensual sexual images of women and minors. MADDY VARNER ICE and CBP’s Face-Recognition App Can’t Actually Verify Who People Are ICE has used Mobile Fortify to identify immigrants and citizens alike over 100,000 times, by one estimate. It wasn't built to work like that—and only got approved after DHS abandoned its own privacy rules. MADDY VARNER The Danger of Reducing America’s Venezuela Invasion to a 60-Second Video January 3 marked the return of US military intervention in Latin America. While the events unfolded between Caracas and Brooklyn, social networks had already fabricated their own reality. ANNA LAGOS China’s AI Boyfriend Business Is Taking On a Life of Its Own Gen Z women in China are all in on digital companionship—even setting up dates with real-world versions of their AI boyfriends. JOHANNA COSTIGAN