ASPI | In a new report, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute outlines what’s happening as Myanmar becomes a haven for transnational organized crime groups.

Cosmopolitan | After the investigation by Brianne and Cecilie, the romance scammer is in federal custody, facing charges filed by Operation Shamrock’s Erin West.

The Guardian | Operated by crime syndicates and fostered by the military junta, the number of massive scam complexes on the Thai-Myanmar border has doubled since 2021.

Fox 13 | After getting a series of emails that seemed to be too good to be true, Barbara did the right thing, she contacted law enforcement — and it paid off.

PYMNTS | Finding victims isn’t random luck on the part of scammers. They use data to align messages with a target’s age, income, and habits, then pick the contact channel where the person will most likely respond.

Forbes | Scammers trick people to believe they have a computer error, then pose as tech support to fix it. FBI reports losses to these scams hit $1.4B in 2024; a 87% jump from 2022.

Idaho News 6 | Police are warning parents about a new phone scam. Scammers are calling parents, pretending to be medics, and claiming their child has been injured.

KABC Eyewitness News | A California woman learned her mother had been sending money to a scammer who used deepfake videos to impersonate celebrity Steve Burton.

NBC News | It seemed simple: Invest a small amount in a high-tech scooter-sharing company. Use the app to see your profits rise as people rent scooters. But it was a scam.

UPI | The FCC’s enforcement bureau removed more than 1,200 non-compliant robocall providers from its “Robocall Mitigation Database” for violating certification rules.

WIRED | New research reveals that transnational organized crime groups may now be targeting children in their sextortion schemes.

KHOU-11 | Thirteen people have been charged in an elder fraud scheme targeting more than 400 seniors through fake “grandparent” calls from the Dominican Republic.

CubaHeadlines | Using a “SIM swap,” scammers impersonated the victim, transferred her phone number and data to a new phone, and stole over $17,000 in less than a day.

FightCybercrime.org | The casual conversations from friendly new contacts online or the wrong-number texts aren’t casual at all. They’re calculated to manipulate.

ESPN | Online predators zeroed in on a Michigan teen as a source of easy money through a form of internet blackmail called “sextortion.” Hours later, the young man took his own life.

Whale Hunting | Trafficked workers in Southeast-Asian compounds run crypto scams to siphon billions. Operation Shamrock is prying open the ‘pig-butchering’ machine — and fighting to free victims.

NBC6 South Florida | The scam begins when someone fraudulently takes over your cell phone account. And it takes scammers only minutes to drain your bank accounts.

The Wall Street Journal | Investment scams are global operations. Americans want banks to do more to prevent them. Pressure is spreading to telecoms and social media, where scammers find their marks.

ABC News | Cambodia has intensified its crackdown on online scam centers, arresting nearly 5,000 suspects so far this year.

WCSC Live 5 News | Crypto ATM kiosks allow people to put cash into the machine and receive some kind of cryptocurrency. But they’re used for fraud 99.5% of the time.