My Crypto Hell Journey Started With a Wrong Number Scam Text

In an exclusive excerpt from Zeke Faux’s forthcoming book, “Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall,” he uncovers a crypto-powered human-trafficking ring in Cambodia.

“Chinatown” in Sihanoukville, Cambodia.

The mysterious WhatsApp message arrived one night in August 2022, while I was out at a bar with a friend: “Hi David, I’m Vicky Ho don’t you remember me?”

This was strange. My name isn’t David, and I didn’t know anyone named Vicky. But I’d been getting a lot of seemingly misdirected messages on my phone. Usually I ignored them. This time, for some reason, maybe because I’d had a spicy watermelon margarita, I didn’t.