Four days to make victims fall in love: How global scammers use US\ntech to fleece people<\/p>\n
Technology from American companies is being used to power a\nrevolution in the scam industry, including in Southeast Asia, an\ninvestigation has found.<\/p>\n
The instructions were clear: He had four days to make each victim\nfall in love.<\/p>\n
And there were a lot of victims.<\/p>\n
Online, Safeer Mohammed Koorimannil, who was trafficked to a scam\ncenter in Myanmar, impersonated a 28-year-old Singaporean woman named\nElla. On a typical shift, he said, he chatted with more than 100 people\nacross dozens of profiles at the same time, as supervisors prowled among\nthe desks with electric batons.<\/p>\n
In just a month, Koorimannil targeted some 50,000 victims from at\nleast 17 countries, according to records he smuggled out to The\nAssociated Press. His \u201cclients\u201d included a widowed tailor in Kurdistan,\na pastry chef in Turkey, a sheep farmer in Kyrgyzstan, soldiers in Iraq,\nan engineer in Russia, a building painter in Germany, a port officer in\nArgentina, a student in Indonesia, a security guard in Poland and a\ndairy farmer in the Republic of Georgia.<\/p>\n
And he did it using software built with artificial intelligence\nmodels from American tech companies that scammers are abusing to target\nvictims at unprecedented speed and scale. \u201cEveryone is a robot there,\u201d\nhe told AP from his home in southern India in his native Malayalam\nlanguage.<\/p>\n
Technology from American companies is being used to power a\nrevolution in the scam industry, playing a key role in the\nindustrialisation and globalisation of fraud in ways that have not been\nclear until now, an AP\/\u201cFRONTLINE\u201d investigation has found.<\/p>\n
Watchdogs say these companies have the technical capacity to do more\nto protect against abuse but lack the legal, regulatory and business\nincentives to crack down on a crime the Federal Trade Commission\nestimates cost Americans nearly US$200 billion in losses in 2024.<\/p>\n
While most public scrutiny of the technology that fuels scams has\nfocused on the social media platforms victims see, the infrastructure\nexploited to commit fraud begins much farther upstream, the\ninvestigation showed.<\/p>\n
American technology is present all along the digital supply chains\nthat connect scammers with the scammed, from AI models baked into\npowerful new tools to optimise workflow and create more perfect fakes,\nto satellite dishes that enable scammers to evade internet crackdowns,\nto internet service providers that carry traffic from the lawless\nborderlands of Myanmar to the phones and computers of millions of\nvictims.<\/p>\n
The AP found no evidence to suggest these companies were doing\nanything illegal themselves. However, the abuse of their tools and tech\ninfrastructure at scam compounds in Myanmar, as documented by the AP and\n\u201cFRONTLINE,\u201d raises questions about how vigorously they are enforcing\ntheir own terms of service, which prohibit illegal activity and, in many\ncases, explicitly ban fraud.<\/p>\n
Among the AP\u2019s findings:<\/p>\n
American-made AI models \u2014 chiefly ChatGPT and Gemini \u2014 have been\nused to build specialised software that allows scammers to seamlessly\nwork across dozens of languages, surveil workers and target victims\naround the world, the investigation found with the help of C4ADS, a\nWashington-based nonprofit focused on global security. Scammers who\npurchased these tools took in tens of millions of dollars, according to\nblockchain analysis by TRM Labs at the request of\nAP\/\u201cFRONTLINE.\u201d<\/p><\/li>\n
A sophisticated, global internet infrastructure supports\nMyanmar\u2019s scam compound economy, which relies on services from Cogent\nCommunications, AT&T, DigitalOcean and Oracle, among others. One in\nfive signals from devices at four scam compounds linked to sanctioned\nentities in Myanmar was carried by a US-registered company, according to\nan AP analysis of more than 200,000 device connections provided by\nInternational Justice Mission, an anti-trafficking nonprofit.<\/p><\/li>\n
Elon Musk\u2019s satellite internet company, Starlink, is the number\none internet service provider in Myanmar, including to scam centers,\naccording to device data, public records and interviews \u2014 despite public\npressure from Congress and a widely publicised crackdown last\nfall.<\/p><\/li>\n
At least 25 new scam compounds have been built deep inside\nMyanmar since a high-profile crackdown along the Thai border last fall,\nnew satellite imagery shows. Scammers from at least 13 of these outposts\nused Starlink IP addresses to get online between early March and the end\nof May, an AP analysis of device and satellite data from International\nJustice Mission shows.<\/p><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The AP\/\u201cFRONTLINE\u201d investigation was based on tens of thousands of\nleaked scam centre files, videos and photos; an analysis with C4ADS of\nmisuse of AI at scam centres; an examination of more than 200,000\nconnections made by devices over a year at four scam compounds in\nMyanmar linked to entities sanctioned by the US government; and\ninterviews with 58 scam victims and three dozen current and former\nscammers from 19 countries.<\/p>\n
Cybersecurity experts say internet service providers, AI companies\nand Starlink could do more to prevent the abuse by scammers \u2014 but lack\nthe legal, regulatory and business incentives.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there\u2019s no disincentive to continuing this, if there\u2019s no cost to\nactually facilitating scamming, then why would I spend a dollar to\nprevent scamming?\u201d said Sascha Meinrath, the Palmer chair in\ntelecommunications at Penn State University. \u201cThis is the problem. It\u2019s\nidentifiable, it\u2019s addressable \u2014 at least somewhat \u2014 but it costs\nsomething. And right now the cost of facilitating scamming is zero.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside the United States, that cost is starting to rise. The United\nKingdom, the European Union, Australia and Singapore have introduced new\nregulations that require companies to do more to prevent scams \u2014 or face\nfinancial penalties.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in Washington, lawmakers and government officials have\nbeen asking American tech companies to cooperate to cut scammers off\nfrom US infrastructure, but on a voluntary basis.<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/four-days-to-make-victims-fall-in-love-how-global-scammers-use-us-tech-to-fleece-people-1782885013", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }