In cases like this, where we don;t know for sure that people know what the risks are in handing over thousands of dollars to people traffickers, I don't see how empathy isn't a useful barometer.
It certainly beats your pointless truism that we don't know what they're thinking IMO.
Well yes.
So what you're saying is that you personally cannot empathise with these people to the extent that you wouldn't have to be particularly desperate to hand over 20+ years of life savings to a criminal*?
*a known criminal, not a con artist