Global Pulse

标签： Asia

亚洲

  • Founder of Asian super-app Gojek sentenced to years in jail for corruption

    Founder of Asian super-app Gojek sentenced to years in jail for corruption

    In a high-profile verdict that has sent shockwaves through Indonesia’s political and tech sectors, former Indonesian Education Minister and celebrated tech entrepreneur Nadiem Makarim has been sentenced to 10 years in prison on corruption charges connected to a national school laptop procurement program. The 41-year-old co-founder of Southeast Asian super-app Gojek, who left his private sector role to enter government in 2019 under former President Joko Widodo, has repeatedly maintained his innocence and announced plans to appeal the ruling immediately after the verdict was delivered.

    The case revolves around the Education Ministry’s 2021–2022 procurement of Chromebook laptops for schools across the archipelago. Prosecutors argue that Nadiem deliberately rigged the tender process to favor Google, a major Gojek investor, crafting bidding specifications that exclusively matched Google’s Chrome operating system. They allege the purchase went forward despite a 2018 internal ministry assessment confirming Chromebooks, which require continuous internet connectivity, are unsuitable for Indonesia’s many remote regions with limited or no fixed internet access. Prosecutors further claim Nadiem’s actions siphoned $45 million in personal illicit gains, caused $125 million in total state losses, and undermined the country’s public education system, violating Indonesia’s national anti-corruption commitments.

    Alongside his 10-year prison term, the Jakarta court ordered Nadiem to pay 809 billion rupiah ($45 million) in restitution, equal to the amount he was found guilty of wrongfully acquiring. An additional 1 billion rupiah fine was also imposed. If the restitution is not paid, Nadiem will face an extra five years behind bars; non-payment of the fine will add another 190 days to his sentence. Nadiem has confirmed he is unable to meet the restitution requirement, meaning his effective sentence will reach 15 years if the conviction is upheld on appeal.

    Nadiem has rejected all allegations outright. He asserts that the 809 billion rupiah in question never left Gojek’s corporate accounts, and he never personally accessed or profited from the funds. He also denies any connection between Google’s investment in Gojek and the procurement decision, noting that the Chromebook purchase actually reduced overall costs for the Indonesian government compared to competing alternatives.

    Hundreds of Nadiem’s supporters, including dozens of Gojek ride-hailing drivers, gathered outside the Jakarta courthouse ahead of the verdict to voice their backing. Many carried white banners reading “We are with Nadiem” and “Free Nadiem,” and when Nadiem arrived to the court, he greeted the crowd, breaking down in emotion when embraced by a long-time Gojek driver. Inside the building, supporters watched a live stream of the proceedings in an adjacent room; when the guilty verdict and sentence were read, the crowd outside erupted in loud boos, while Nadiem was visibly seen crying in the courtroom.

    Speaking to reporters after the ruling, Nadiem struck a somber note. “I do not know what words I can use to explain how I feel today,” he said. “I do not know whom I should ask for help, or where I can seek justice. My only hope is in the Indonesian people, in those who still believe that truth still exists in this country.” His family has stood firmly by him throughout the 10-month legal process. “It’s been difficult for almost 10 months. As a family, we have continued to pray, fight, and stand by him throughout this time,” his mother-in-law Sania Makki told the BBC.

    The conviction has sparked fierce debate and controversy across Indonesia, with many critics and analysts arguing the case is politically motivated. Critics claim Nadiem is a target of a broader crackdown on political opponents of current President Prabowo Subianto’s administration, with anti-corruption frameworks being weaponized to target dissent. “The eradication of corruption is being used to attack those who are not liked, or those who are critical of people in power,” prominent Indonesian lawyer and activist Todung Mulya Lubis told the BBC.

    Many observers also warn the verdict could have a chilling effect on young Indonesian professionals and entrepreneurs considering entering public service. For many young Indonesians, Nadiem is a symbol of successful private-sector innovation turned public good, so the conviction has stoked widespread fear that outsiders who join government to pursue reform will be targeted for criminalization. “There’s a feeling of fear. It’s like, so if someone that’s from outside of the government tries to work with the government or tries to do good in their own field in this country, am I going to get criminalised?” said artist and political activist Andovi da Lopez. “I can’t speak for everybody, but in my circle, there’s this fear and people just say, ‘just don’t work with the government, just don’t.’ And that fear is real.”

    Usman Hamid, executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia, noted that Nadiem is widely viewed by young Indonesians as a reformer trapped in a broken political system. “To young Indonesians, Nadiem is seen as someone who ‘wants to bring change but is trapped in a government system that has systemic problems,’” Hamid said. “Maybe [Nadiem] was perceived as forcing [the government] to innovate policies, and maybe he wanted to do it too fast.”

    Many have also drawn parallels between Nadiem’s case and that of two other political allies of former President Joko Widodo: ex-trade minister Tom Lembong and ruling party official Hasto Kristiyanto. Both men were convicted of corruption in recent cases, but were pardoned by current President Prabowo as part of a stated policy of national reconciliation, raising questions about unequal application of justice. The verdict arrives amid growing public unrest in Indonesia, driven by soaring cost of living and a sharp depreciation of the rupiah. Large-scale protests against Prabowo’s economic policies have spread across the country in recent weeks, with activists arguing government policies are pushing the nation toward economic crisis.

  • Why are South Korean fans so angry at their football coach?

    Why are South Korean fans so angry at their football coach?

    The fallout from South Korea’s early exit from the FIFA World Cup has reached a dramatic conclusion, with head coach Hong Myung-bo stepping down from his post following widespread public anger over the team’s failure to progress beyond the group stage.

    The national team’s underperformance at the tournament left it unable to secure a spot in the knockout rounds, a result that fell far short of the expectations held by South Korean football supporters and the broader football community. Fans across the country voiced sharp criticism of Hong’s tactical decisions, team selection strategies, and overall management of the squad throughout the competition, holding him accountable for the disappointing early elimination.

    Hong Myung-bo, a former legendary South Korean footballer who previously led the national team at previous major tournaments, formally announced his resignation shortly after the team’s return from the World Cup, acknowledging the failure to meet performance targets and taking full responsibility for the outcome. The sudden departure opens a period of uncertainty for South Korean football, as the Korea Football Association now begins the process of searching for a new head coach to lead the program forward into upcoming qualifying cycles and international competitions. The fan backlash that preceded the resignation underscores the high stakes and deep passion surrounding men’s national football in South Korea, where consistent progress at the World Cup is seen as a point of national pride.

  • Australian man charged with murder over death of a teenage girl in Thailand’s Pattaya

    Australian man charged with murder over death of a teenage girl in Thailand’s Pattaya

    BANGKOK – Thai law enforcement officials announced Tuesday that an Australian man has been formally charged with murder and unlawful concealment of a corpse following the killing of a 17-year-old girl in one of Thailand’s most popular coastal tourist destinations. The case, which has drawn cross-border public attention, unfolded over four days before the suspect was taken into custody while attempting to flee the country.

    The teenage victim was first reported missing to local authorities last Friday. Investigators later confirmed that the last confirmed sighting of the girl came from condominium security footage, which captured her entering the residential building alongside the accused, identified as Simon Peter Carman, in Pattaya. The beach resort city sits roughly 93 miles east of Thailand’s capital Bangkok, drawing millions of international visitors every year.

    Following the pair’s entry to the condominium, additional surveillance footage shows Carman leaving the building alone, pulling a large hard-shell suitcase behind him. Investigators say he then loaded the bulky suitcase onto a motorbike and rode into a remote, unpopulated stretch of land parallel to a local railway line.

    Authorities intercepted Carman in the early hours of Saturday at Bangkok’s international airport, just minutes before he was set to board a commercial flight bound for Perth, Australia. At the time of his arrest, he was only charged with the rape of a minor. But a quick search of the route captured on security footage led officers to the suitcase holding the victim’s body shortly after his arrest, prompting the addition of the far more severe murder and body concealment charges.

    Under Thai criminal law, a conviction for premeditated murder carries the possibility of the death penalty. Kanoknan Sooksri, the lead Pattaya Police investigator assigned to the case, confirmed that Carman is currently being held in police custody and has been assigned a state-appointed defense attorney. The exact date of his first court appearance has not yet been finalized, and Carman has formally denied all charges brought against him.

    Security footage published by local Thai media outlets purports to show the full timeline of the incident: early Thursday morning, Carman and the victim are seen holding hands as they walk into the condominium’s elevator. More than 12 hours later, Carman exits the building alone, dragging the dark-colored suitcase that would later be found holding the girl’s body. A second video clip circulating online, also released by Thai media, captures Carman during his initial interrogation by police.

    In the recorded interrogation, Carman claimed to officers that he was only restraining the victim because she had become agitated and violent. He alleged that the teen threatened him with a knife after he attempted to hand her 500 Thai baht, the equivalent of roughly 15 U.S. dollars. “I had my wallet open to get the money out, and next thing there’s a knife to my face,” Carman told investigators in the clip.

  • Fire at petrochemical plant in eastern India injures at least 20 people

    Fire at petrochemical plant in eastern India injures at least 20 people

    A devastating fire at a Haldia Petrochemicals petrochemical facility in eastern India has left at least 20 people injured, with five suffering life-threatening critical wounds, local law enforcement confirmed. The emergency incident unfolded on Tuesday, when the blaze ignited along a naphtha transit pipeline at the plant, located in Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal. The site sits roughly 130 kilometers southwest of the state capital, Kolkata, and the fast-spreading flames quickly extended beyond plant boundaries to threaten adjacent residential areas.

    In response to the emergency, more than a dozen fire engines were deployed to the scene to battle the intense blaze. Footage captured at the site shows emergency crews blasting large volumes of water onto the burning pipeline, while plumes of thick black toxic smoke billowed hundreds of meters into the sky over the district. First responders completed search and rescue operations successfully, evacuating all injured parties to regional medical centers for urgent treatment. Among the hurt are hourly plant workers and at least two on-site security officers, per police updates.

    Naphtha, the fuel product that was moving through the pipeline when the fire started, is an extremely flammable petroleum-derived product. It is most commonly used as a feedstock for manufacturing gasoline and a wide range of industrial chemical products, a factor that amplified the risk of the fire spreading rapidly. As of initial press updates, the root cause of the pipeline fire remains undetermined. Haldia Petrochemicals, the private firm that owns and operates the facility, released an official statement confirming that the company has launched an internal investigation into the incident to identify what triggered the blaze.

  • Nvidia flew to Beijing with Trump to sell but China said no

    Nvidia flew to Beijing with Trump to sell but China said no

    A little over a month ago, a last-minute addition to then-President Trump’s trade delegation to Beijing made headlines that hinted at a far larger global shift. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia — the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization — had traveled to China to pitch the firm’s newly U.S. export-approved H200 AI chips. What he got in response was a clear rejection.

  • Asian shares mostly higher tracking Wall Street gains and oil stabilizes

    Asian shares mostly higher tracking Wall Street gains and oil stabilizes

    Global financial markets entered a new trading session Tuesday with broad upward momentum across most Asian equity benchmarks, driven by a positive close on Wall Street and a sharp rebound for South Korean technology and chip stocks that pulled back sharply in prior sessions amid a sector-wide sell-off.

    The recovery in Asian tech stocks comes against a months-long backdrop of soaring investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence-linked assets, which has lifted shares of top chipmakers across the region even as growing fears over a potential bubble in overvalued AI stocks have injected widespread volatility into global markets. South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index, which has emerged as a major beneficiary of the global AI boom due to the outsized role of domestic chip manufacturing giants like SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, advanced 1.3% on Tuesday to close at 8,504.43. The gain reversed much of the index’s recent losses: it fell 0.2% in the previous trading session and tumbled 5.8% the session before that, dragged down by the broad tech sell-off. On Monday, both Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix had unveiled aggressive long-term investment plans totaling more than $500 billion to expand South Korea’s domestic chip manufacturing and AI infrastructure. On Tuesday, Samsung shares rose 3.6% while SK Hynix gained 1% as investor confidence returned to the sector.

    Other major Asian indexes also posted solid gains on Tuesday. Japan’s Nikkei 225, another index that has seen strong tailwinds from the global AI boom, climbed 0.9% to 70,116.82. Leading Japanese chip equipment manufacturer Tokyo Electron jumped 4.3%, while SoftBank Group, the major investment holding firm with a stake in AI startup OpenAI, added 0.6%. Taiwan’s Taiex index surged 3.2% in Tuesday trading, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 recorded a modest uptick of less than 0.1% to settle at 8,825.80. Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite Index edged 0.2% higher to 4,080.42, though Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index bucked the regional upward trend to fall 0.8% to 22,836.39. India’s Sensex also posted a small loss of 0.1% for the session.

    In energy markets, oil prices stabilized near pre-conflict levels as geopolitical developments emerged around the four-month standoff between the U.S. and Iran. Both countries announced separately this week that they would send delegations to Qatar, though Iranian officials clarified that no formal bilateral talks with the U.S. had been finalized. Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil pricing, traded 0.2% lower at $73.73 per barrel on Tuesday, a level that remains close to the $72 per barrel price recorded before the outbreak of hostilities in late February. U.S. benchmark crude fell 0.4% to $70.49 per barrel, as traders continue to monitor diplomatic progress that could lead to a permanent end to the conflict and ease geopolitical risks to global energy supplies.

    U.S. stock futures edged higher in early trading, pointing to a potential continuation of gains from the prior session. On Monday, all three major Wall Street benchmarks recovered from earlier losses to close solidly higher, recouping some losses from a rare down week for U.S. equities. The broad benchmark S&P 500 gained 1.2% to end at 7,440.43, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.6% to 52,182.74, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.1% to 25,820.14. Major U.S. chip and AI stocks led the gains: Intel rose 2.7%, Micron Technology gained 1.1%, Nvidia added 1.3%, and Advanced Micro Devices climbed 3.4%.

    In currency markets, the U.S. dollar strengthened slightly against the Japanese yen, rising to 162.18 yen from 161.94 yen as the yen continued its recent weakening trend. The euro edged lower against the dollar, trading at $1.1399, down from $1.1422 in the prior session.

  • Methodology for AP/’FRONTLINE’ investigation into how US tech is abused for global scams

    Methodology for AP/’FRONTLINE’ investigation into how US tech is abused for global scams

    A landmark joint investigation by The Associated Press and PBS’s FRONTLINE has uncovered new details about the sprawling transnational cyberscam industry operating out of militia-controlled compounds in Myanmar, revealing that illegal fraud operations have quickly reorganized and expanded following a high-profile government crackdown last year.

    The inquiry drew on an unprecedented array of evidence to map scam activity across the country: tens of thousands of internal leaked documents, visual materials including photos and videos from scam centers, a joint analysis of abusive AI deployment with conflict analytics firm C4ADS, in-depth interviews with 58 scam survivors and 36 current and former scammers spanning 19 nations, and a comprehensive review of hundreds of thousands of device connections linked to four major scam compounds tied to U.S.-sanctioned entities.

    All device connection data analyzed in the probe was collected by anti-trafficking non-profit International Justice Mission, which obtained commercially available advertising technology data covering multiple periods between February 2025 and January 2026 before sharing it with AP. Each entry in the dataset includes a device’s exact geographic coordinates and assigned IP address. To cross-reference and validate the information, AP worked with fraud prevention firm Scamalytics to cross-check IP address allocations to internet service providers, prioritizing Scamalytics’ results in cases of conflicting or unclear data. The dataset was also augmented with layered risk assessments from multiple sources: open-source IP blacklists maintained by Firehol, IP2ProxyLite, IPSum, Spamhaus and X4Bnet Spambot, plus Scamalytics’ proprietary risk scoring system built on past fraud reports and independent analysis. Investigators stress that these scores signal potential risk, not definitive proof of intentional fraudulent activity on the part of service providers.

    The investigation carried several important limitations that researchers openly acknowledge. The dataset only captures devices with geolocation capabilities activated, meaning the total scope of internet infrastructure serving Myanmar’s scam compounds is far larger than recorded here. Cybersecurity firm Spur Intelligence Corporation reviewed the dataset and flagged confirmed cases of ad fraud, which AP removed from its analysis, though investigators note that undetected ad fraud may still be present in the remaining data. Commercial data alone also cannot draw definitive conclusions about the specific role any given telecommunications or internet service provider plays in supporting scam operations, even when patterns of traffic align with fraudulent activity. Providers can offer a range of digital services that scammers exploit, from basic internet connectivity and hosting for fake crypto exchange and counterfeit retail websites to allowing VPN and proxy use that hides scammers’ true physical locations, even as traffic routes through global internet infrastructure.

    All devices included in the core sample were geolocated to four major established scam compounds: Tai Chang, Deko Park, KK Park, and a newly established site near Hpakalu, Myanmar.

    According to U.S. and European sanction documentation, KK Park—one of the most notorious scam hubs along the Thai-Myanmar border—operates under the protection of the Karen Border Guard Force, also called the Karen National Army (KNA). The KNA is an ethnic Karen armed militia affiliated with Myanmar’s ruling national military. In May 2025, the U.S. Treasury formally designated the KNA as a transnational criminal organization, citing its central role in facilitating cyberscams that target U.S. citizens and its involvement in human trafficking. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control confirmed the group provides security for KK Park and profits directly from illegal scam activity by leasing land to criminal syndicates running the fraud operations. In October 2025, Myanmar’s military junta carried out a widely publicized demolition campaign targeting KK Park, forcing scammers to disperse to other undeveloped scam sites across the country, including the new emerging compound near Hpakalu. International Justice Mission’s data confirms that multiple devices active at KK Park just days before the military raid were already operating from the Hpakalu site by January 2026, proving direct movement of scam operations to new locations after the crackdown.

    The other two established compounds, Deko Park and Tai Chang, are located in territory controlled by the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), another armed ethnic group. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned the DKBA in November 2025 for its proven role in supporting cyberscam centers, including the Tai Chang compound. Rescued human trafficking victims held at Tai Chang have documented widespread abuse, including torture and beatings carried out by DKBA soldiers guarding the compound.

    Beyond the four core compounds, AP verified satellite imagery of 25 new scam compounds across Myanmar that were identified by International Justice Mission. All of these new sites have been established or have expanded dramatically since the October 2025 crackdown on KK Park. AP analyzed a sample of device activity from these new sites between March 1 and June 1, 2026, provided by the anti-trafficking organization, and found that at least 13 of the new compounds rely on Starlink IP addresses for their internet connectivity. Investigators note this finding comes from a limited sample and may not capture all Starlink activity across the new sites.

    AP shared full detailed data on the location and timing of device connections with all companies identified in the investigation ahead of publication.

    This report is part of an ongoing collaborative project between The Associated Press and FRONTLINE that will include a full documentary release in the coming months. The Associated Press receives financial support from multiple private foundations, but maintains full editorial control over all investigative content. AP’s standards for partnership with philanthropic organizations, a full list of financial supporters, and funded coverage areas are available to the public on AP.org. Members of the public can share tips with AP’s global investigative team via email or the official AP tip portal.

  • Four days to make victims fall in love: How global scammers use US tech to fleece people

    Four days to make victims fall in love: How global scammers use US tech to fleece people

    A year-long joint investigation by The Associated Press and PBS FRONTLINE has uncovered a sprawling, industrialized global fraud ecosystem operating out of unregulated scam compounds in Myanmar, powered largely by widely available artificial intelligence models and digital infrastructure from major United States technology companies. The investigation, which draws on tens of thousands of leaked internal scam center records, satellite imagery, network data analysis, and interviews with more than 50 scam victims and 36 current and former scammers from 19 countries, details how American tech tools have enabled transnational criminal networks to scale fraud to unprecedented levels, bilking victims out of hundreds of billions of dollars annually while exploiting a lack of U.S. regulatory pressure to force action.

    One of the most chilling firsthand accounts of this system comes from Safeer Mohammed Koorimannil, a young Indian man who was trafficked into a U.S.-sanctioned Myanmar scam compound after being lured by a fake tourism job advertisement. Held against his will alongside hundreds of other trapped workers, Koorimannil was forced to impersonate a 28-year-old Singaporean woman named “Ella” to run romance scams, with a strict mandate: convince each target to fall in love within four days. On a typical work shift, he managed more than 100 active conversations across dozens of fake profiles simultaneously, while armed supervisors patrolled the rows of desks carrying electric batons to punish workers who failed to meet strict performance quotas. In just one month, Koorimannil and his team targeted roughly 50,000 potential victims across at least 17 countries, a scale of outreach that would have been impossible without AI-powered tools built on models from leading U.S. tech firms. Victims targeted in these schemes spanned every continent and walk of life: a widowed tailor in Kurdistan, a pastry chef in Turkey, a sheep farmer in Kyrgyzstan, active-duty soldiers in Iraq, a Russian engineer, a German building painter, an Argentine port officer, an Indonesian student, a Polish security guard, and a Georgian dairy farmer, among countless others. Records smuggled out of the compound by Koorimannil confirm the full scope of the operation.

    The investigation, conducted with analytical support from Washington-based global security nonprofit C4ADS, found that two popular scam management tools—Kongtian Intelligent Customer Acquisition (KT) and Global Social Traffic Navigation (007TG)—are built on top of leading U.S. AI models, primarily OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. These tools enable scammers to automate core parts of the fraud process: generating convincing, natural-sounding chat responses, creating fully realized fake profiles and backstories for scammers to impersonate, and providing real-time translation across more than 100 languages to target victims across the globe. The platforms also automatically track worker productivity, making it easier for scam bosses to identify and punish underperformers. Blockchain analysis conducted by crypto analytics firm TRM Labs for the investigation found that developers of these scam tools have earned tens of millions of dollars in illicit revenue, while the scammers who use them have raked in well over $75 million in victim payments in just over a year. A single crypto wallet linked to 007TG received more than $860,000 in payments from known scam networks between April 2024 and December 2025, according to the analysis.

    Trapped workers like Koorimannil face brutal violence for falling short of quotas. Photographs taken after one beating show his body covered in red, swollen lash marks, and he recalled that his hands would shake uncontrollably whenever supervisors approached his workstation. After months of captivity, Koorimannil and a friend paid a 500,000 Indian rupee (roughly $5,300) ransom per person to secure their release, escaping back to his home in southern India where he now shares his story to warn others.

    Beyond AI models, the investigation found that U.S. companies provide the foundational digital infrastructure that allows these scam operations to function at all. An analysis of 202,013 device connections from four major Myanmar scam compounds linked to U.S.-sanctioned entities, conducted with data from anti-trafficking nonprofit International Justice Mission, found that one in five connection signals from these sites are routed through U.S.-registered internet service providers and cloud hosts, including Cogent Communications, AT&T, DigitalOcean, and Oracle. No other non-regional country comes close to this volume of scam traffic.

    The investigation also confirmed that Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service, operated by SpaceX, has become the top internet provider in Myanmar, and remains the service of choice for scam compounds even after multiple publicized crackdowns and U.S. government pressure. Satellite imagery shows that at least 25 new large-scale scam compounds have been built in remote areas of Myanmar since a high-profile crackdown along the Thai border in fall 2025, and analysis of geolocated device data found that scammers at 13 of these new outposts were actively using Starlink IP addresses to connect to the internet between March and May 2026. After Starlink cut service to more than 2,500 terminals near scam compounds in October 2025, its market share dropped from 15% to 6.5%, but rebounded rapidly by the end of the year. Today, Starlink holds nearly 20% of Myanmar’s internet market, making it the country’s largest provider—despite the company’s public map claiming it does not offer service in Myanmar at all.

    Accounts from former scam workers lay bare the human cost of this unregulated access. Ebisa, an Ethiopian engineer who was trafficked to the Deko Park scam compound and forced to target wealthy older men, endured constant abuse for failing to meet impossible quotas. When he tried to escape, security guards beat him so severely he lost vision in one eye; he recently learned that the damage is irreversible. Another trafficked worker, Nigerian Obinna Okeadu, died after a brutal punishment beating for poor performance at Deko Park in 2025, according to accounts from his co-workers and family.

    For victims in the United States and around the world, the impact of these scams is life-altering. Chris Colocousis, a 60-something divorced man from Massachusetts, lost $400,000 of his life savings to a romance scam run out of Myanmar, after a scammer using the name “Eliza” built a fake relationship and convinced him to invest all his retirement savings into a fraudulent crypto platform. “You just feel like your whole world fell apart,” Colocousis said. “I’m thinking about all this time that I invested into reaching a point where I could retire at a certain age—and it’s just gone.”

    Cybersecurity and policy experts agree that while U.S. tech companies have the technical capacity to curb this abuse, they lack sufficient legal, regulatory, and financial incentives to take meaningful proactive action. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission estimates that consumer losses from global scams will reach nearly $200 billion in 2024, with most originating from Southeast Asian transnational criminal networks. “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, 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.”

    While the United Kingdom, European Union, Australia, and Singapore have already enacted new regulations that impose financial penalties on tech companies that fail to prevent scam abuse, U.S. policymakers have only relied on voluntary cooperation from tech firms to date. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia launched the Scam Center Strike Force in November 2025 to target transnational scam networks, and a four-day disruption operation in May 2026 worked with major tech firms to take down more than 1.4 million fraudulent accounts and seize illicit infrastructure. “We will not allow criminal organizations to weaponize our own infrastructure against us or devastate the life savings of hardworking families,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro told AP in a statement. “Our message is clear: we will find you, we will stop you, and we will protect the American people.”

    In responses to the investigation’s findings, major tech companies have acknowledged the issue and taken limited targeted action. OpenAI said it has robust proactive detection systems that identify 95% of scam abuse and remove 100,000 scam-linked accounts each month, and after reviewing AP’s data, the company banned three accounts linked to Myanmar scam networks. OpenAI also noted that its model is used three times more often to help users identify and avoid scams than it is abused by scammers, and has partnered with the Global Anti-Scam Alliance to launch a public scam detection resource at scam.org. Google said it is committed to responsible AI development and builds safety guardrails into Gemini to block scam-promoting content. Oracle said it is “diligently working with law enforcement” on the issue, while AT&T has implemented new policy changes to close a loophole that allowed scammers to hide their traffic by routing it through AT&T’s network identity. Finland-based UpCloud, which operates U.S.-based servers, launched an internal review after receiving AP’s findings and updated its risk assessment processes. Starlink declined to respond to detailed requests for comment, but has publicly stated it has “zero tolerance” for illegal use of its service and proactively disables terminals linked to criminal activity.

    Cybersecurity advocates argue that U.S. regulation needs to be updated to force proactive action, comparing the responsibility of tech companies to prevent scam abuse to the responsibility of water utilities to provide clean drinking water. “This has to be like clean water,” said Matthew Moynahan, CEO of cybersecurity firm GetReal Security. “Anything coming out of the tap for an end user, whether that tap is a PC, a browser somewhere, or your mobile phone, dirty water shouldn’t get to you. This is what this is.”

    As AI capabilities continue to advance, experts warn that fully automated scams run entirely by AI agents—with no human scammer required—are just over the horizon. “We’re moving towards a world where maybe you don’t need human scammers anymore,” said Ari Redbord, global head of policy at TRM Labs. “All you need is hundreds, thousands, millions of agentic agents who don’t need to sleep, don’t need to eat, who are 24/7 doing this.”

  • India’s biggest share sales tell the story of a country glued to its phones

    India’s biggest share sales tell the story of a country glued to its phones

    India is gearing up for two of the most anticipated initial public offerings in its modern economic history, with Jio Platforms and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) both targeting listings before the end of 2026. Industry analysts describe the dual offerings as potentially transformative events that could redefine the trajectory of the country’s capital markets, reflecting a decade of sweeping structural change across how India lives, works, invests and consumes.

    The two firms submitted their draft IPO prospectuses within days of each other last month, kicking off the formal approval process for the listings. Reliance Industries, the conglomerate controlled by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, owns Jio Platforms, the digital and telecom arm that sparked a nationwide digital revolution after its 2016 launch. Jio is projected to raise approximately $4 billion through the offering, with a total estimated valuation ranging between $120 billion and $160 billion. For the NSE, the world’s largest derivatives exchange and one of the top three equity venues globally by trading volume, the IPO will sell a 6% equity stake to raise around $3.3 billion, valuing the exchange at $57 billion.

    Yatin Singh, chief executive officer of investment banking at Emkay Global, explained that the scale and significance of these offerings extend far beyond their sheer size. Even at their current valuations, the combined listings will lift India’s overall national market capitalization considerably, but their real meaning lies in what they represent: a tangible reflection of the massive shifts that have reshaped India’s economy over the past 10 years. “These are unique businesses which don’t get built often,” Singh noted. “NSE is a direct proxy of the ‘financialisation’ of Indian household savings into mutual funds and stocks, while Jio is the story of a company that single handedly ushered in a digital revolution, becoming a driving factor for several new-age Indian businesses.” He compared the potential impact of the listings to the landmark software company IPOs that reshaped Indian markets decades ago.

    Jio’s disruptive entry into India’s crowded telecom sector in 2016 redefined the entire industry overnight. Offering nearly free data to hundreds of millions of first-time internet users, it triggered a brutal price war that consolidated a fragmented market of 17 operators into a near-duopoly. Ten years ago, fewer than 200 million Indians had access to the internet; today, that figure is approaching 1 billion, with Jio alone claiming 525 million subscribers who use its network for everything from digital payments to online shopping and streaming entertainment. Thanks to Jio’s low-cost tariffs that democratized smartphone access, India is now the world’s largest consumer of mobile data, outpacing developed markets including the United States and China.

    This digital transformation has rewoven the fabric of daily economic life in India. Launched the same year as Jio, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) real-time payment system grew from processing near-zero transactions to 228 billion annual transactions by 2025, according to brokerage firm Zerodha. Between 2019 and 2026, paid subscribers to over-the-top streaming platforms rose 40%, and Kotak Bank research shows Indian households’ monthly mobile data bills have tripled – growing three times faster than rural wages – as consumers spend more time on video streaming and social media. Today, Jio is evolving beyond its core telecom roots, positioning itself as a homegrown digital and artificial infrastructure giant through strategic partnerships with global tech leaders Nvidia and Meta to build domestic data centers and large language models trained on Indian languages. Elara Securities notes the firm is now shifting from market share acquisition to active monetization, driven by gradual tariff increases, rising data consumption, and growth in higher-value postpaid plans – a trend that signals India’s consumer market is maturing rapidly.

    The NSE’s growth trajectory, meanwhile, tracks the explosion of retail investing that has swept India in recent years. When the pandemic locked millions of households at home, a wave of first-time mom-and-pop investors entered the stock market, fueled by the widespread availability of cheap mobile data and affordable smartphones. The total number of active online trading accounts surged from roughly 30 million before the pandemic to more than 200 million today. The NSE now serves as the core backbone of India’s $4.85 trillion stock market, which ranks as the fourth largest in the world by total capitalization. The exchange generates revenue from every trade executed on its platform, and has delivered consistently strong profits even as trading volumes fluctuate with market conditions. After years of delays caused by a series of governance hurdles, its upcoming IPO signals the maturing of India’s market infrastructure and the broadening of its investor base, according to Feroze Azeez of Anand Rathi Wealth Limited.

    Azeez summed up the broader significance of the dual listings, saying “Together, Jio and NSE represent the twin pillars of India’s new economy.” The simultaneous offerings are expected to expand India’s investable universe for global capital, giving foreign investors direct access to two sectors that are central to India’s long-term growth narrative. However, industry experts remain divided on whether the IPOs will be enough to reverse the recent outflow of foreign capital from Indian markets. Over the past year, Indian equities have been among the worst-performing major markets globally, as foreign investors pulled billions of dollars out of the country to chase higher interest rates in the U.S. and AI-focused investment opportunities elsewhere in Asia. A depreciating rupee has further eroded India’s appeal for overseas investors.

    Domestic investor confidence has also been shaken in recent years, after many small retail investors suffered losses on high-profile IPOs from major domestic firms including PayTM and Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). Dozens of other recent large IPOs are currently trading below their initial listing prices, leaving many households wary of new offerings. Analysts agree that the final success of the Jio and NSE IPOs will hinge entirely on their pricing. “Even high-quality businesses can deliver disappointing returns if they are issued at overly aggressive valuations,” Azeez noted.

  • China’s factory activity expands in June with boost from tech exports

    China’s factory activity expands in June with boost from tech exports

    HONG KONG – A closely-watched official economic survey released Tuesday has delivered an unexpected bright spot for China’s manufacturing sector, revealing that factory activity accelerated its expansion in June, fueled by strong global demand for artificial intelligence-related hardware that has pushed export volumes higher.

    Data published by China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows the official manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) – a key benchmark for measuring manufacturing sector health – rose to 50.2 in June, up from a flat 50 reading recorded in May. This outcome outpaced the consensus forecasts from a survey of economists, defying widespread market concerns that China’s post-pandemic economic recovery was losing traction.

    The PMI operates on a 0-100 scale, where any reading above the 50 threshold signals the sector is expanding, while a figure below 50 marks contraction. Breakdown of the survey’s sub-indexes offers further evidence of the sector’s improved performance: the new orders sub-index jumped to 51.2 in June, climbing from 49.9 in May, while the production sub-index also edged up to 51.4 from May’s 51.2 reading.

    In an official statement accompanying the data release, NBS chief statistician Huo Lihui noted that the June PMI results confirm a gradual warming of China’s overall economic climate. However, independent analysts have struck a more cautious tone, pointing out that the current growth rebound remains heavily concentrated in a narrow range of sectors.

    “China’s economy has regained some momentum lately. But this remains heavily dependent on exports and AI-related tech,” Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China economics at global research firm Capital Economics, wrote in a client note published Tuesday. “External demand remains the main engine of growth for China’s manufacturing sector.”

    Economists have repeatedly flagged persistent weaknesses in domestic demand, rooted in a multi-year downturn in China’s key property sector that has left consumers more cautious about discretionary spending. Many argue that the current growth model driven by exports and AI investment is unbalanced, and additional policy intervention will be needed to put the recovery on a more sustainable footing.

    Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING Bank, emphasized that further targeted policy support from Beijing this year to stimulate domestic consumption and private investment would deliver meaningful benefits. Such measures, Song noted, could help China avoid the risks of relying on an increasingly lopsided growth pattern.

    Chinese policymakers have set a full-year economic growth target of 4.5% to 5% for 2024. At present, most economists project the country is on track to meet this goal, supported in large part by the ongoing surge in AI-related manufacturing exports that is propping up overall factory activity.