When we imagine scams, we have a certain idea of what a scammer might be. When we dove deep into the world of cyberscamming, we discovered something most of us are unaware of. That scammers are often themselves duped, trafficked & forced to scam to survive in the cyberscam compounds. These compounds - a form of modern slavery - force trafficked workers to defraud strangers, yet there is rarely enough awareness or discourse surrounding this. We wanted to flip that lens: instead of framing scammers purely as villains, the series humanizes the people coerced into running these operations and exposes the trafficking systems behind them.
In partnership with Anti-Slavery International, we created an AI-animated micro-drama series that uses animation and AI to showcase the inside of a cyberscam compound through serialised storytelling, releasing it as daily episodes on Instagram so the story unfolded the way real social content does, building anticipation and conversation after every episode’s cliffhanger..
Our goals were fourfold: reframe the narrative around cyber scams from "scammer vs. victim" to one that reveals the coercion and trafficking systems trapping people inside scam compounds; increase accessibility of a complex, often-misunderstood global issue through serialized storytelling aimed at younger, digitally-native audiences; anchor the fiction in credibility through a direct partnership with Anti-Slavery International, connecting the emotional pull of the story to an organization doing frontline work on modern slavery; and spark active engagement rather than passive viewing, encouraging audiences to watch, share, discuss, question, and sit with the discomfort of the story, turning a microdrama into a catalyst for real conversation.
After going through global reporting on this, we wanted to tell the story in a way that reaches audiences wide & far, along with being extremely shareable. We also wanted to put the story out there as quickly as possible, because the story itself is urgent.
To execute this on a tight timeline and budget, the team used AI-assisted animation, allowing a small core team to produce a serialized format quickly without the cost and lead time of traditional production pipelines. Produced by Anushka Shah, with concept and direction by Kashmira Patil, writing by Arundhati Bhande, original visuals by Mansi Joshi, post-production and editing by Pulkit Verma, research by Mitali Adhikari, and marketing by Naman Upadhyaya - the project brought together collaborators across Mumbai and London offices.
The distribution strategy was deliberately platform-native: rather than releasing a single long-form video, the team structured Scam City as a daily micro-drama on Instagram, mirroring the binge-friendly, episodic rhythm audiences already use on the platform. This made a heavy subject - modern slavery and digital fraud - feel approachable in short, shareable bursts, while building suspense episode to episode. Along with this, we used various native tools to social media like DM Automation, where commenters received further context to cyberslavery & to drive traffic to Anti-Slavery International.
Balancing accuracy and sensitivity was central to our creative strategy: we wanted to portray scam-compound workers with empathy and depth, without minimising the real harm caused to victims on the other end of the call. By grounding the story in research, we ensured the show held both truths simultaneously - that victims exist on both sides of the call. On the production side, a challenge we faced was the ethical use of AI: we decided that AI would be used as a tool to optimize efficiency, never to replace human creative judgment. Every department - direction, writing, illustration, and editing was human-led for truthful storytelling, with AI used as a tool to serve the story.
What makes Scam City unique is the combination of AI-assisted animation, an international not-for-profit partnership lending real-world credibility, and a serialized social-first format - applying entertainment industry storytelling craft to a cause typically confined to PSAs and statistics-heavy awareness campaigns. The result was a project that became more than a microdrama, becoming a way to talk about a reality usually reduced to headlines and forwards.
Scam City set out to do something the Indian content landscape had not attempted before: tell the story of cyberslavery through the eyes of the people forced to run the scams, not just the victims on the other end of the call. Our objectives were clear: build awareness around an invisible crisis, drive audience action, and demonstrate that impact storytelling and entertainment are not mutually exclusive.
The results by the end of the campaign were extremely impactful. Across the four weeks campaign window, the series generated over 20 million views, 13 million in reach, and an 18.6% engagement rate - significantly above industry benchmarks for short-form content. The teaser alone drove 3.4 million views, confirming that the subject matter had immediate resonance with Indian audiences. DM automation drove more than 40x increase in Anti-Slavery International's website hits from India, successfully introducing them to an entirely new demographic and translating on-screen awareness into measurable real-world impact.
Beyond the numbers, the audience responded in ways that mattered. An analysis of the comments found that 64.7% reflected intent to act - viewers sharing episodes as warnings, tagging family members, and connecting the show to their own experiences of being scammed. The engagement arc shifted from the shock of discovering cyberslavery in Episodes 1 and 2 to genuine emotional investment by the finale, with Episode 10 generating the highest comment volume of the season. The partnership with Anti-Slavery International grounded the project in credibility and connected the show to their global advocacy network, amplifying both reach and legitimacy.