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Scam:Inside Southeast Asia's Cybercrime Compounds
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A probing investigation of Southeast Asia’s online scam industry – told through the voices of survivors
Running the gamut from the infamous ‘pig butchering’ romance con to sophisticated online extortion and investment fraud, Southeast Asia has emerged as the global hub for cybercrime. Based on years of field research, Scam takes an in-depth look at the history and inner dynamics of the region’s online scam industry. Revealed are the appalling working conditions — akin to modern slavery — in the hundreds of prisonlike compounds that have mushroomed throughout multiple countries. The result is a shocking exposé of victims forced to be perpetrators, a tragic modern tale.
Reviews
In recent years the industrialised perpetration of scams from the Far East has gradually become exposed by the media. Very little is known about the origins and workings of this ‘industry’. Scam is the first authoritative and deep investigation by the world’s leading scholars on this subject. It is a meticulously researched, fascinating, and detailed account of these Asian crime groups that is both gripping and harrowing. It is essential reading for anyone interested in frauds, scams, and modern slavery.
Scam is the definitive account of one of the most pernicious problems of our time, and a landmark study of the evolution of modern crime.
Scam is a carefully researched, terrifying expose on the secret industry causing untold misery all over the world. One of the most shocking books I've read in years.
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Meticulously researched and drawing on rich empirical data, Scam is a comprehensive examination of an illicit trade shrouded in secrecy. Through their great storytelling and probing analysis, Franceschini, Li, and Bo offer readers a close look at the inner workings of the scam compounds in Cambodia, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Laos. This captivating book will be the definitive work on the online scam industry in Southeast Asia for many years.
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Riveting and revelling, Scam brilliantly traces this perverted form of surveillance capitalism from its epicentre in Southeast Asia to global China’s underbelly – the underworld of Chinese-led criminal syndicates, their collusion with non-Chinese political elites, and the slave labour regime that is shockingly both postmodern and primordial. An informative and layered analysis that should be read widely.
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Few are better placed to explore the sinister world of cyber scam operations than Ivan Franceschini, Ling Li, and Mark Bo. Brimming with first-hand accounts and painstakingly sought testimonials from survivors of these brutal compounds, their book stands testament to the chaos these operations have wrecked across Southeast Asia and beyond. The authors make the stakes clear, contextualising it within the rise of Global China and the rise of transnational criminal enterprises that have burgeoned alongside it, but never forgetting voices of those enslaved inside these compounds. From forced labour to trafficking to the millions around the world that have lost their life savings, the issue of scams is one of the most pressing of our time. This book is the definitive story of how we got here, of who has profited and who has suffered, and goes beyond easy tropes and narratives. A clear, incisive, and must-read account.
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Enslaved and extremely online, the captives at the heart of this book express the grim paradoxes and intolerable realities of our present more than anything I’ve read about in years.