‘I panicked': Woman is warning others after SIM swap scam
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.
Cambodia continues raids on scam centers
ABC News | Cambodia has intensified its crackdown on online scam centers, arresting nearly 5,000 suspects so far this year.
Detective sends warning about crypto machines
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.
This Is Not Keanu: Inside Celebrity Impersonation Bitcoin Scam
The Hollywood Reporter | Victims think they’re talking to Keanu Reeves. Or Kevin Costner. Then come pleas for cash. The AI-fueled con that fleeces fans and has Hollywood fighting back.
Teen Jumped Out a Window to Escape Cambodia’s Brutal Scam Farms
Reuters | Lured to Cambodia and forced to defraud strangers online, a Thai teenager said he barely survived after jumping from an eighth-floor window to escape a prison-like compound.
Cambodia: Government allows human rights abuses to flourish in scam compounds
Amnesty International | The Cambodian government is ignoring abuses carried out by criminal gangs in more than 50 scam compounds across the country.
How Foreign Scammers Use U.S. Banks to Fleece Americans
ProPublica | Asian crime syndicates’ online scams cheat victims around the world out of more than $44 billion a year. U.S. banks have been unable to stop them.
Telegram Purged Chinese Crypto Scam Markets, Then Watched Them Rebuild
Wired | Last month, Telegram banned black markets that sold tens of billions of dollars in crypto-scam-related services. Now, as those markets rebrand and bounce back, it’s done nothing to stop them.
Inside Vietnamese Phone Farms Where Fakery Is Made
FrankonFraud | Racks hold thousands of smartphones automated to imitate humans: liking posts, following accounts, watching video — seeding misinformation and scaling scams.
Tricked, tortured, finally freed: Inside a Burmese scam farm
The Times | Trafficked by a Chinese crime gang, Mustapha Momoh was held in southeast Asia — one of 375,000 similar people forced to con westerners out of their life savings.
Escaping The Pig Butcher
Forbes | What to watch out for to avoid being lured into scams. The key: Don’t respond or send money to random people who contact you online, no matter how good their story.
How banks can combat increasingly sophisticated scam tactics
American Banker | Unlike fraud schemes where criminals gain unauthorized access to funds, scams often involve victims being manipulated into willingly initiating transactions themselves.
National Elder Fraud Coordination Center comes alive
BioCatch | AARP, Amazon, Google, and Walmart have launched the National Elder Fraud Coordination Center (NEFCC) nonprofit to help protect older adults.
Better coverage, but exploited for crime? Southeast Asia confronts Starlink dilemma
Channel News Asia | While Starlink could deliver better internet to remote and disaster-hit communities, experts say it poses challenges for regional governments, experts say.
India and Thailand Cooperate to Fight Cybercrime and Human Trafficking
VARINDIA | India and Thailand held talks to address growing concerns around cross-border cybercrime, online scam networks, and human trafficking in Southeast Asia.
North Korea-linked gang stole billions using ‘pig butchering’ romance scams
New York Post | A Cambodia-based gang with ties to North Korea has stolen billions of dollars from Americans through romance scams and other cyber-heists, according to federal officials.
Make Some Noise for Manila
The Big Trace | The Philippines offers a glimmer of hope that Southeast Asia's scam industry isn’t destined for a future of unchecked growth.
FBI says online scams raked in $16.6 billion last year
NBC News | A new report from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center illustrates how cybercrime is a growing problem, with older Americans hit particularly hard.
Smishing Triad: The Scam Group Stealing the World’s Riches
WIRED | Millions of scam text messages are sent monthly. The Chinese cybercriminals sending them are expanding their operations — and innovating quickly.
Scammer’s Manual: How to Launder Money and Get Away With It
New York Times | Governments and law enforcement face a complex, ever-evolving, and shape-shifting web of connections, preventing them from stopping the criminal organizations behind it all.