How global scammers in Myanmar use US tech to fleece people
The instructions were clear: He had four days to make each victim fall in love. And there were a lot of victims. Online, Safeer Mohammed Koorimannil, who was trafficked to a scam center in Myanmar, impersonated a 28-year-old Singaporean woman named Ella. On a typical shift, he said, he chatted with more than 100 people across dozens of profiles at the same time, as supervisors prowled among the desks with electric batons. In just a month, Koorimannil targeted some 50,000 victims from at least 17 countries, according to records he smuggled out to The Associated Press. His “clients” included a widowed tailor in Kurdistan, a pastry chef in Turkey, a sheep farmer in Kyrgyzstan, soldiers in Iraq, an engineer in Russia, a building painter in Germany, a port officer in Argentina, a student in Indonesia, a security guard in Poland and a dairy farmer in the Republic of Georgia. And he did it using software built with artificial intelligence models from American tech companies that scammers are abusing to target victims at unprecedented speed and scale. “Everyone is a robot there,” he told AP from his home in southern India in his native Malayalam language. Technology from American companies is being used to power a revolution in the scam industry, playing a key role in the industrialization and globalization of fraud in ways that have not been clear until now, an AP/”FRONTLINE” investigation has found. Watchdogs say these companies have the technical capacity to do more to protect against abuse but lack the legal, regulatory and business incentives to crack down on a crime the Federal Trade Commission estimates cost Americans nearly $200 billion USD in losses in 2024. While most public scrutiny of the technology that fuels scams has focused on the social media platforms victims see, the infrastructure exploited to commit fraud begins much farther upstream, the investigation showed. American technology is present all along the digital supply chains that connect scammers with the scammed, from AI models baked into powerful new tools to optimize workflow and create more perfect fakes, to satellite dishes that enable scammers to evade internet crackdowns, to internet service providers that carry traffic from the lawless borderlands of Myanmar to the phones and computers of millions of victims. The AP found no evidence to suggest these companies were doing anything illegal themselves. However, the abuse of their tools and tech infrastructure at scam compounds in Myanmar, as documented by the AP and “FRONTLINE,” raises questions about how vigorously they are enforcing their own terms of service, which prohibit illegal activity and, in many cases, explicitly ban fraud. Among the AP’s findings: Spread of scam compounds in Myanmar since fall of 2025 Satellite imagery analysis by International Justice Mission and reviewed by AP found at least two dozen new sites have been built since the crackdown on scam compounds late last year in Southeast Asia. The AP/”FRONTLINE” investigation was based on tens of thousands of leaked scam center files, videos and photos; an analysis with C4ADS of misuse of AI at scam centers; an examination of more than 200,000 connections made by devices over a year at four scam compounds in Myanmar linked to entities sanctioned by the U.S. government; and interviews with 58 scam victims and three dozen current and former scammers from 19 countries. Cybersecurity experts say internet service providers, AI companies and Starlink could do more to prevent the abuse by scammers — but lack the legal, regulatory and business incentives. “If there’s no disincentive to continuing this, if there’s no cost to actually facilitating scamming, then why would I spend a dollar to prevent scamming? ” said Sascha Meinrath, the Palmer chair in telecommunications at Penn State University. “This is the problem. It’s identifiable, it’s addressable — at least somewhat — but it costs something. And right now the cost of facilitating scamming is zero.” Outside the United States, that cost is starting to rise. The United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia and Singapore have introduced new regulations that require companies to do more to prevent scams — or face financial penalties. Meanwhile, in Washington, lawmakers and government officials have been asking American tech companies to cooperate to cut scammers off from U.S. infrastructure, but on a voluntary basis. AP
The instructions were clear: He had four days to make each victim fall in love. And there were a lot of victims. Online, Safeer Mohammed Koorimannil, who was trafficked to a scam center in Myanmar, impersonated a 28-year-old Singaporean woman named Ella. On a typical shift, he said, he chatted with more than 100 people across dozens of profiles at the same time, as supervisors prowled among the desks with electric batons. In just a month, Koorimannil targeted some 50,000 victims from at least 17 countries, according to records he smuggled out to The Associated Press. His “clients” included a widowed tailor in Kurdistan, a pastry chef in Turkey, a sheep farmer in Kyrgyzstan, soldiers in Iraq, an engineer in Russia, a building painter in Germany, a port officer in Argentina, a student in Indonesia, a security guard in Poland and a dairy farmer in the Republic of Georgia. And he did it using software built with artificial intelligence models from American tech companies that scammers are abusing to target victims at unprecedented speed and scale. “Everyone is a robot there,” he told AP from his home in southern India in his native Malayalam language. Technology from American companies is being used to power a revolution in the scam industry, playing a key role in the industrialization and globalization of fraud in ways that have not been clear until now, an AP/”FRONTLINE” investigation has found. Watchdogs say these companies have the technical capacity to do more to protect against abuse but lack the legal, regulatory and business incentives to crack down on a crime the Federal Trade Commission estimates cost Americans nearly $200 billion USD in losses in 2024. While most public scrutiny of the technology that fuels scams has focused on the social media platforms victims see, the infrastructure exploited to commit fraud begins much farther upstream, the investigation showed. American technology is present all along the digital supply chains that connect scammers with the scammed, from AI models baked into powerful new tools to optimize workflow and create more perfect fakes, to satellite dishes that enable scammers to evade internet crackdowns, to internet service providers that carry traffic from the lawless borderlands of Myanmar to the phones and computers of millions of victims. The AP found no evidence to suggest these companies were doing anything illegal themselves. However, the abuse of their tools and tech infrastructure at scam compounds in Myanmar, as documented by the AP and “FRONTLINE,” raises questions about how vigorously they are enforcing their own terms of service, which prohibit illegal activity and, in many cases, explicitly ban fraud. Among the AP’s findings: Spread of scam compounds in Myanmar since fall of 2025 Satellite imagery analysis by International Justice Mission and reviewed by AP found at least two dozen new sites have been built since the crackdown on scam compounds late last year in Southeast Asia. The AP/”FRONTLINE” investigation was based on tens of thousands of leaked scam center files, videos and photos; an analysis with C4ADS of misuse of AI at scam centers; an examination of more than 200,000 connections made by devices over a year at four scam compounds in Myanmar linked to entities sanctioned by the U.S. government; and interviews with 58 scam victims and three dozen current and former scammers from 19 countries. Cybersecurity experts say internet service providers, AI companies and Starlink could do more to prevent the abuse by scammers — but lack the legal, regulatory and business incentives. “If there’s no disincentive to continuing this, if there’s no cost to actually facilitating scamming, then why would I spend a dollar to prevent scamming?” said Sascha Meinrath, the Palmer chair in telecommunications at Penn State University. “This is the problem. It’s identifiable, it’s addressable — at least somewhat — but it costs something. And right now the cost of facilitating scamming is zero.” Outside the United States, that cost is starting to rise. The United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia and Singapore have introduced new regulations that require companies to do more to prevent scams — or face financial penalties. Meanwhile, in Washington, lawmakers and government officials have been asking American tech companies to cooperate to cut scammers off from U.S. infrastructure, but on a voluntary basis. AP
多角的分析
直接の経済ニュースではありませんが、治安と司法の信頼は地域経済の土台です。職場での暴力や未成年者保護への不安が強まると、夜間営業、観光、雇用、地域サービス業のリスク認識が高まります。
投資家目線では、個別事件よりも法執行の予見可能性が焦点です。加害者への対応が曖昧になれば、ローカルビジネスの統治リスクや従業員保護の弱さとして評価されやすくなります。
サイバーの現場では、通信を「個人間の事件」で片づけず、誰が守り、誰が説明するのかを可視化する圧力が強まります。学生の動きは、被害者側が孤立しやすい環境で、沈黙より手続きを選ぶための足場になります。
市民にとっては、自分や家族が被害に遭った時に公正な手続きへアクセスできるのかが最大の関心です。地域団体が声を上げることで、事件の風化を防ぎ、被害者側の孤立を和らげる意味があります。
背景・歴史的文脈
このニュースは、ミャンマーの地域社会で法の支配と弱者保護がどこまで機能しているかを映す事案です。暴力事件そのものに加え、女性団体や市民社会が司法手続きを求めて声を上げている点が重要です。軍政下では警察・司法への信頼が揺らぎやすく、個別事件が地域の不安や統治への不信に直結します。
原文ソース
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