Putin opposes Erdoğan-Assad meeting in Baghdad

The Russian president reportedly favours a high-level meeting between Turkish and Syrian leaders in Turkey rather than Baghdad.


ANF
NEWS DESK
Friday, 12 July 2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin is against the idea of Iraq hosting a high-level reconciliation meeting between Turkey and Syria in Baghdad, the Middle East Eye reported.

Since April, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has stepped up his efforts to mediate a possible "normalisation" agreement between Turkey and Syria, according to sources close to the talks within the Iraqi government.

MEE's source said that Sudani wanted to organise the first meeting between Erdogan and Assad in Baghdad, but that the “Putin isn’t in favour of such an idea. He supports a meeting in Turkey."

Umit Nazmi Hazir, a Moscow-based expert on Russian affairs, told the Middle East Eye that Russia doesn’t want to lose its role in talks to facilitate the normalisation of relations, having been involved from the beginning.

"At the same time, for Russia, the realisation of the normalisation process under Iraq's leadership carries the risk of other actors getting involved," he said.

"Russia, which is dealing with the Ukraine problem, wants the Syrian crisis to be solved and its burden to be eased; but it wants to do this by increasing its domination in Syria," Hazir added.

UK

"For once, the Labour Party outplayed the Conservative Party"

 | Andrew Marr | The New Statesman

US mobile giant AT&T suffers fresh massive data theft

San Francisco (AFP) – US mobile operator AT&T reported Friday that hackers had stolen call and message data from virtually all of its customers for six months in 2022 -- around 90 million people.

Issued on: 12/07/2024 -


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Accoring to AT&T, the data downloaded by the hackers did not include the content of calls and messages, nor personal information such as names or social security numbers © PAU BARRENA / AFP

The company said in a statement that "AT&T customer data was illegally downloaded from our workspace on a third-party cloud platform" and that it had opened an investigation.

It added that the access point used by the hackers "has been secured" and that "based on information available to us...at least one person has been apprehended."

The data mainly comprised records of phone calls and text messages made between May 2022 and October 2022.

These are the phone numbers used by AT&T mobile subscribers, and also, in some cases, location data that could help malicious actors determine where calls were made and text messages sent.

But according to AT&T, the data downloaded by the hackers did not include the content of calls and messages, nor personal information such as names or social security numbers.

"At this time, we do not believe the data is publicly available. We continue to work with law enforcement in their efforts to arrest those involved," the company added.

Although Snowflake is not mentioned in the statement, eyes have turned to this cloud platform, which sells data analytics services to large corporations and has recently suffered a wave of data thefts.

A source close to the case confirmed to AFP that the hackers had gained access to the AT&T records via Snowflake.

AT&T already suffered a major cyberattack in March, when the personal data of over 70 million current and former customers was leaked on the dark web.

This is a "second blow to the millions of customers who have already lost trust after having their private information exposed by the company earlier this year," said Darren Guccione, CEO and co-founder at Keeper Security.

Although this time the information is "less sensitive than that disclosed in the previous breach," Guccione recommended that those affected take steps to protect their identity, such as changing their AT&T account password and implementing multifactor authentication.

He further advised customers to monitor their bank accounts, sign up for a dark web monitoring services or freeze their credit "to prevent the approval of new loans or lines of credit" in their name.

The Department of Justice said that it was investigating the incident.

© 2024 AFP

Data of AT&T customers downloaded to third-party platform after security breach

An AT&T logo (Mark Lennihan/AP)

FRI, 12 JUL, 2024 - 
MICHELLE CHAPMAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS

The data of nearly all customers of the telecommunications giant AT&T was downloaded to a third-party platform in a 2022 security breach, the company said on Friday, as cyberattacks against businesses, schools and health systems continue to spread globally.

The breach hit customers of AT&T’s mobile phone customers, customers of mobile virtual network operators using AT&T’s wireless network, as well as its landline customers who interacted with those mobile numbers.

AT&T said that it does not believe the data is publicly available.

“The data does not contain the content of calls or texts, personal information such as social security numbers, dates of birth or other personally identifiable information,” AT&T said on Friday.

The compromised data also does not include some information typically seen in usage details, such as the time stamp of calls or texts, the company said, or customer names.

AT&T, however, said that there are often ways, using publicly available online tools, to find the name associated with a specific telephone number.The data does not contain the content of calls or texts, personal information such as social security numbers, dates of birth or other personally identifiable information

An internal investigation determined that compromised data includes files containing AT&T records of calls and texts between May 1, 2022 and October 31, 2022.

AT&T has more than 100 million customers in the US and almost 2.5 million business accounts.

The company said on Friday that it has launched an investigation and engaged with cybersecurity experts to understand the nature and scope of the criminal breach.

Compromised data also includes records from January 2, 2023, for a very small number of customers.

The records identify the telephone numbers an AT&T or MVNO mobile number interacted with during these periods.

For a subset of records, one or more cell site identification number(s) associated with the interactions are also included.

The company continues to co-operate with law enforcement on the incident and that it understands that at least one person has been apprehended so far.

The year has already been marked by several major data breaches, including an earlier attack on AT&T.

In March AT&T said that a dataset found on the “dark web” contained information such as social security numbers for about 7.6 million current AT&T account holders and 65.4 million former account holders.

Some car dealerships are still using pens and paper to close deals after back-to-back cyberattacks last month on a company that supplies them with software.

That company, CDK Global, is still attempting to re-establish normal operations.

Cybersecurity experts are warning that hospital systems around the US, which have already been targeted, are at risk for more attacks and that the government is doing too little to prevent breaches.

A World War I veteran is first Tulsa Race Massacre victim identified from mass graves


A World War I veteran is the first person identified from graves filled with more than a hundred victims of the 1921 Tulsa massacre of the city’s Black community, the mayor said Friday.

BY KEN MILLER
Updated July 12, 2024


OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A World War I veteran is the first person identified from graves filled with more than a hundred victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that devastated the city’s Black community, the mayor said Friday.

Using DNA from descendants of his brothers, the remains of C.L. Daniel from Georgia were identified by Intermountain Forensics, said Mayor G.T. Bynum and officials from the lab. He was in his 20s when he was killed.

“This is one family who gets to give a member of their family that they lost a proper burial, after not knowing where they were for over a century,” Bynum said.

A white mob massacred as many as many as 300 Black people over the span of two days in 1921, a long-suppressed episode of racial violence that destroyed a thriving community known as Black Wall Street and ended with thousands of Black residents forced into internment camps overseen by the National Guard.

Brenda Nails-Alford, a descendant of massacre survivors and a member of the committee overseeing the search for victims, said the identification brought her to tears.

“This is an awesome day, a day that has taken forever to come to fruition,” Nails-Alford said.

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More than 120 graves were found during searches that began in 2020, with forensic analysis and DNA collected from about 30 sets of remains. Daniel’s remains are the first from those graves to be linked directly to the massacre.

The breakthrough for identifying Daniel came when investigators found a 1936 letter from his mother’s attorney seeking veteran’s benefits. Alison Wilde, a forensic scientist with Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Forensics, said the letter provided by the National Archives convinced investigators that Daniel was killed in the massacre.

No members of Daniel’s family, many of whom don’t know each other, attended the news conference announcing the identification, which was made earlier this week, Wilde said.

“I think it’s shocking news, to say the least” for the family, Wilde said. “We know we’ve brought a lot into their lives”

The massacre began when a white mob, including some deputized by authorities, looted and burned Tulsa’s Greenwood District. More than 1,200 homes, businesses, schools and churches were destroyed from May 31-June 1.

Forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield said Daniel’s remains were fragmented and a cause of death could not be determined.

“We didn’t see any sign of gunshot wounds, but if the bullet doesn’t hit bone or isn’t retained within the body, how would we detect it?”

Oklahoma state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said the remains that were exhumed, including Daniel, were found in simple wooden boxes — and Daniel’s was too small for him.

“They had to bend his legs somewhat at the knee in order to get him to fit,” Stackelbeck said. “His head and his feet both touched either end of the casket.”

Stackelbeck said investigators were searching for simple caskets because they were described in newspaper articles at the time, death certificates, and funeral home records as the type used for burials of massacre victims.

Bynum said the next search for victims will begin July 22.

“We’ll continue the search until we find everybody that we can,” Bynum said.

A lawsuit by the two known living survivors of the massacre was dismissed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in June.

Attorneys for the two, Viola Fletcher, 110, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, are asking the court to reconsider the decision. Attorneys are also asking the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the massacre under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007, which allows for the reopening of cold cases of violent crimes against Black people committed before 1970.

Google vessel in French Polynesia to prepare layout of five undersea cables

Patrick Decloitre, Correspondent French Pacific Desk


Google trans-Pacific cables French Polynesia-Fiji-Guam-Australia. Photo: Brian Quigley

A Google vessel has arrived in French Polynesia to prepare the layout of five undersea data cables, as part of a major project that was announced a few months ago.

The first step is for the Google ship to study the ocean's bottom and plot the best possible route, while taking into account environmental factors.

The multi-million-dollar project was also unanimously endorsed by French Polynesia's Territorial Assembly this week.

French Polynesia's Moetai Brotherson said the Google vessel's first mission was to survey the ocean floor to "determine the right path to lay out those cables", based on environmental concerns.

He said French Polynesia was chosen for the Google project because "we have quite a unique location right at the centre of the South Pacific Ocean, so this makes French Polynesia an ideal destination for this type of project".

He said since the strategic project was made public, he was approached by several large companies who are interested in launching digital-based ventures in French Polynesia.

The layout of those five cables, he said, will multiply by 50 French Polynesia's present bandwidth but also make French Polynesia a highly strategic hub for all of the Pacific.

French Polynesia’s President Moetai Brotherson on board Google survey ship inspects survey equipment. Photo: Présidence de la Polynésie française

Traffic speeds reveal that Russia’s YouTube slowdown is targeted throttling, not Google Global Cache ‘equipment failure’

 July 12, 2024
Source: Meduza



On July 12, Russian telecommunications officials warned that YouTube upload and download speeds are slowing nationwide, supposedly due to failures of the Google Global Cache equipment used to ensure fluid access to Google services in Russia. In an interview with Meduza, I.T. expert Mikhail Klimarev explained that the equipment Google left in Russia to operate its Global Cache is indeed aging, but more recent information measuring Russian Internet traffic speeds indicates that the authorities are throttling YouTube specifically. Additionally, a source in Russia’s telecommunications industry confirmed to Meduza that the government actually started slowing YouTube speeds on July 11, initially limiting its experiment to the ISPs Rostelecom and Tele2. (The news website Gazeta.ru later reported that two of its sources say the state authorities plan to block YouTube outright, beginning in September.) Here’s what we know about Russia’s covert YouTube crackdown.


Roskomnadzor has throttled specific Internet services before. In March 2021, the agency started experimenting with slowing Twitter traffic (after several months, it scaled back these efforts). In February 2022, immediately after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Roskomnadzor began throttling Facebook. Earlier today, on July 12, federal lawmakers revealed that the government is now slowing access to WhatsApp amid the instant messenger’s refusal to enforce Russian censorship orders.

In April 2021, researchers at the University of Michigan reported that the Russian authorities were throttling Twitter access through special-purpose deep-packet-inspection boxes (known as TSPU, or “technical-solution-for-threat-countermeasures,” devices) that are installed at Internet service providers. This technology allows Roskomnadzor to centralize more censorship control than was previously possible with the “middleboxes” that ISPs use to implement the agency’s blocklists. According to the researchers’ findings, Twitter-related domains triggered Roskomnadzor’s throttler, dropping data packets traveling faster than 128 kilobits per second. (Capped at this speed, it would take more than 18 hours to load a single 1-gigabyte video file.)

Available evidence indicates that Roskomnadzor is now using this technology to throttle YouTube traffic. According to ValdikSS, a blogger who coauthored the paper described above and the founder of GoodbyeDPI (software designed to bypass DPI-based Internet censorship), almost all ISPs in Russia are now slowing access to YouTube through the domain *.googlevideo.com, but this filtration hasn’t yet affected Google IP addresses, including the IP addresses of Google Global Cache’s servers.


“It’s either a technical mistake or a feature they didn’t take into account,” ValdikSS explained on a forum where experts discuss Internet censorship. “Of course, there are zero technical problems with the equipment’s operation,” he added, rejecting the official explanation offered by Rostelecom, Russia’s biggest telecommunications company. ValdikSS also shared the results of his tests measuring data transfer speeds in cities across Russia, showing that googlevideo transfer speeds had collapsed in most areas (though less so in Moscow), while transfers involving Google domains not associated with YouTube were far higher.

PATHOGENS CAUSE WAR

DR Congo: Conflict escalation linked to deadly Mpox threat

12 July 2024


At least 25 million people have been caught up in the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where a neglected health emergency continues to unfold at an alarming rate, the UN health agency said on Friday.

For decades, conflict in the mineral-rich eastern DRC has triggered alarming levels of violence, mass displacement, widespread disease, gender-based violence and severe mental trauma, explained Dr Adelheid Marschang, Senior Emergency Officer at the World Health Organization (WHOOpens in new window).

‘Chronic and acute shock’

Today, the vast central African nation now has the “highest number of people in need of humanitarian aid in the entire world, with 25.4 million affected” and many in “chronic and acute shock”, she told journalists in Geneva.

A staggering 7.4 million people have been displaced, including 2.8 million in North Kivu alone.

The number of people forcibly uprooted has increased since the separatist M23 movement launched a major offensive in 2022, prompting national and regional military responses that have struggled to restrain the militia's advance.

Left with nothing

The resulting mass displacement has overwhelmed water and sanitation systems and brought an additional burden to the population’s scarce resources, the WHO official warned.

“About 40 per cent of the population, that is 40.8 million people, face serious food shortages, with 15.7 million facing severe food insecurity and as a result, a higher risk of malnutrition and infectious diseases,” Dr Marschang said. “If immediate action is not taken to address basic needs in DRC, over one million children will suffer from acute malnutrition.”

Mpox one of many health threats

Outbreaks of cholera, measles, meningitis, Mpox and plague have all been reported, exacerbated by severe flooding and landslides.

Specifically on Mpox – which remains a global health threat with 26 countries reporting cases to WHO this month – Dr Marschang said that DRC has seen 20,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths from the virus since the start of 2023.

Over 11,000 cases, including 443 deaths, have been reported so far this year, “again affecting mostly children”, she noted.

Mpox spreads through close contact, causing flu-like symptoms and skin rash. Scientists raised the alarm last month about the spread of a dangerous new strain of Mpox in South Kivu and fear it will spread in overcrowded camps in and around Goma.

Military activity around those camps has made it difficult for health authorities to contain the virus if security is not granted, the UN health agency explained.

Rights crisis neglected

Earlier this week, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Bintou KeitaOpens in new window, told the UN Security CouncilOpens in new window that the DRC faces one of the most severe and neglected humanitarian crises of our times.

Dr Marschang echoed that observation, explaining that the Humanitarian Response Plan for 2024 aims to assist 8.7 million people and requires $2.6 billion for all UN and partner agencies.

“The underfunding is severe,” she stressed, as “16 per cent of the Humanitarian Response plan is currently funded. For WHO, we are looking for something like $30 million to address the situation until the end of the year.”

The deterioration of the security situation has accompanied the full withdrawal from South Kivu of the UN Stabilization Mission in DRC (MONUSCOOpens in new window), ending the first phase of disengagement from DRC following a request to close the mission from the Government in Kinshasa.

MONUSCO’s operations began winding down in January after two decades of operations, but its Head, Bintou Keita, told the UN Security Council on Monday there should not be a rush to further disengagement since this process has thrown up unexpected challenges. She explained the rebel activity from the M23 carries a “very real risk of provoking a wider regional conflict”.

Violent insecurity in DRC has reached alarming levels, UN human rights chief Volker TürkOpens in new window has warned, “with an absence of State authority over large swathes of territory has also cleared the way for brutal levels of violence and attacks”.

Nature.comwww.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-00661-1

Conflicts and the spread of plagues in pre-industrial Europe - Nature

Dec 10, 2020 ... One of the most devastating environmental consequences of war is the disruption of peacetime human–microbe relationships, ...

Thelancet.comwww.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(02)11807-1.pdf

Deadly comrades: war and infectious diseases - The Lancet

In the American civil war, two- thirds of the estimated 660 000 deaths of soldiers were caused by pneumonia, typhoid, dysentery, and malaria, and this death ...

Mit.educovid-19.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/dnlo43g7

7. War as a “Disease Amplifier” - MIT Press on COVID-19

Apr 16, 2020 ... The possible effects of war on the evolution of pathogen characteristics has long been overlooked.”14 Ewald argues that the processes of ...

Nih.govwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1326439/

The history of biological warfare - PMC - NCBI

And as our knowledge of the biology of disease-causing agents—viruses, bacteria and toxins—increases, it is legitimate to fear that modified pathogens could ...

Sciencedirect.comwww.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/biological-warfare

Biological Warfare - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

Biological warfare is the deliberate use of disease-causing biological agents such as bacteria, virus, rickettsiae, and fungi, or their toxins, to kill or ...

THIRD WORLD U$A

Vermont floods raise concerns about future of state’s hundreds of ageing dams



A loader dumps dirt along a washed out portion of Mill Street after remnants of Hurricane Beryl caused flooding and destruction, Friday, July 12, 2024, in Plainfield, Vt. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)


Walker Blackwell, right, cleans up the damage to his home after remnants of Hurricane Beryl caused flooding and destruction, Friday, July 12, 2024, in Plainfield, Vt. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)


An excavator and loader clear Hudson Avenue of mud after remnants of Hurricane Beryl caused flooding and destruction, Friday, July 12, 2024, in Plainfield, Vt. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)


August Thompson walks over the washed out remains of the road in front of his grandfather’s home after remnants of Hurricane Beryl caused flooding and destruction, Friday, July 12, 2024, in Plainfield, Vt. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)


BY MICHAEL CASEY
Updated  July 12, 2024

BOSTON (AP) — The latest flooding in Vermont has added fresh urgency to concerns about the hundreds of dams in the state, a third of which are more than a century old.

This week’s deluge from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl wasn’t as bad for the hundreds of dams compared to last year’s floods, when five failed and nearly 60 overtopped. But the second bad flood in a year raises concerns about the viability of these structures as climate change brings heavier rains and more powerful storms.

“The many thousands of obsolete dams that remain in our rivers do not provide protection from flooding, despite what many may think,” Andrew Fisk, the northeast regional director for the environmental advocacy group American Rivers, said. “Dams not created specifically for flood protection are regularly full and do not provide storage capacity. And they also frequently direct water outside of the main channel at high velocities which causes bank erosion and impacts to communities.”

The challenge facing dams in Vermont is playing out across the country as more dams overtop or fail during heavy rains. The Rapidan Dam, a 1910 hydroelectric dam in Minnesota, was badly damaged last month by the second-worst flood in its history. And in Texas, flooding damaged the Lake Livingston Dam’s spillway about 65 miles (105 kilometers) northeast of Houston.


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There are roughly 90,000 significant dams in the U.S. At least 4,000 are in poor or unsatisfactory condition and could kill people or only harm the environment if they failed, according to data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They need inspections, upgrades and even emergency repairs.

Like the rest of New England, Vermont has mostly older, small dams built to power textile mills, store water or supply irrigation to farms. The concern is they have outlived their usefulness and climate change could bring storms they were never built to withstand.

The floods last year in Vermont drew outsized attention to dams mostly due to the failures and near failures. In the capital Montpelier, a dam was at risk of sending water over the emergency spillway and through parts of the town. The National Inventor of Dams, a database regulated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, lists 372 dams in the state, with 62 rated as high hazard, which means lives could be lost if the dam fails. Ten of those were rated in poor condition, which means remedial action is necessary.

State officials say they actually regulate 417 dams and that there are hundreds more too small and of minimal hazard to be regulated.

The storms last year led to a rapid inspection of all the state’s dams, with more than $1.5 million spent to stabilize and repair storm damage.

“The team had never been faced with a situation of, you know, 8 inches of widespread rain across essentially the entire state of Vermont,” Neil Kamman, the director of the Water Investment Division in the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, said. “It stressed all of the facilities that the state of Vermont owns and that the dam safety team manages but filled up hundreds of dams, caused the failures that you know about and created a whole bunch of unknown uncertainties out there on the landscape in terms of downstream risk due to, you know, prospective dams having been destabilized.”

In response, the legislature approved the hiring of four staffers in the dam safety program, bringing the total to nine, and allocated an additional $4 million to a dam safety program, up from $200,000. That money can be used for emergency risk reduction, restoration or removal of dams.

This time around, dam safety officials said the damage has been minimal. No dams are believed to have failed and only one dam — Harvey’s Lake in Barnet, which is classified as a low hazard structure — overtopped. But even in that case, there was not likely to be any significant impact to property nor the nearby roadways, officials said.

Julie Moore, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, said during a news conference Friday that inspections found that Winooski River Valley flood control reservoir “continue to do their job well” and that levels at the Waterbury Reservoir “are stabilizing with plenty of storage remaining.” She also said that officials had completed inspections at “seven particularly at risk” dams in the northern part of the state and that “no damage was identified.”

The floods this year came too soon for the additional money and staffing to have an impact. But Kamman said the experience of responding to last year’s flood helped shaped a more robust response from the team this time around.

“The biggest difference between the response this year and last year is the fact that we had the game plan worked out for a widespread event that would stress a large number of facilities all at once,” he said.

Crushing the scam farms: Southeast Asia’s ‘criminal service providers’

12 July 2024



Transnational organised crime groups based in Southeast Asia are turning into “criminal service providers” selling a range of illegal activities, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODCOpens in new window).


As we reported earlier in the weekOpens in new window, there has been a proliferation of illicit operations, known as scam farms, following the COVID-19Opens in new window pandemic, across Southeast Asia - including in the Philippines - where they have often operated alongside legal gambling businesses.

UNODCOpens in new window is supporting countries across the region to cooperate more closely to fight back against the influence of criminal networks.

Benedikt Hofmann, the UNODC Deputy Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, visited a scam farm in the Philippines that was raided in March this year. He took UN News’s Daniel Dickinson on a tour.

Benedikt Hofmann: Here in northern Philippines, just a few hours north of Manila, is an example of a scam farm of the type that exist in many parts of the Philippines and across Southeast Asia. We can see buildings where people work, cafeterias where they eat and dormitories for sleeping.

UN News/Jessica Jiji
Benedikt Hofmann describes the luxury in which the scam centre bosses live.

In the midst is one building that housed the gambling operation, which had been formally registered with the government and inspected by a regulator. But, what’s not visible to that regulator, at least on paper, are the buildings that are in between.

One of them I saw earlier, houses computers and work stations, previously staffed by Vietnamese workers running scams targeting the Vietnamese market. Another building is for Chinese-speaking workers, who conducted scams targeting the Chinese market.

There are houses like the one that I’m standing in here, where the people that control this compound – the bosses, as they call them – do business and where they relax by the pool with their families.

UN News: Is there anything that you’ve seen today which has surprised you?

Benedikt Hofmann: The scale and sophistication of the compound is surprising. This does not look very different from a well-established tech company. Some 700 people were discovered on this compound when it was raided in March, and that’s not as many as other compounds we know about.

The other surprising aspect is the contrast between the lives of the people who were forced often against their will to live and work here and the sheer scale of wealth of the people who were in charge of the compound.

UN News: How much freedom do the workers have?

UN News/Laura Gil
A scammer’s workstation; the text in blue reads ‘increasingly prosperous.’

The people who work here are basically fenced off from the outside world. All their daily necessities are met. There are restaurants, dormitories, barbershops and even a karaoke bar. So, people don’t actually have to leave and can stay here for months.

However, even if they wanted to leave, they could not, as we’ve heard from people who were rescued from these centres. Some have been tortured and been subjected to unimaginable violence on a daily basis as punishment for wanting to leave or for failing to reach their daily quota in terms of money scammed from victims. There’s a huge amount of human suffering on this compound.

There are multiple types of victims, the people who are being scammed around the world, but also the people who are trafficked here held against their will and who are exposed to violence.

UN News: Who is behind these massive operations?

Southeast Asia is the ground zero for the global scamming industry. Transnational organised criminal groups that are based in this region are masterminding these operations and profiting most from them.

UN News/Daniel Dickinson
Workers who do not perform are handcuffed and threatened with fake guns.

They work with different actors, with people who control territory, for example, in the Mekong border areas of Myanmar, or they might work with local power structures.

UN News: What range of crimes are being committed here?

Many of the more established scam farms in the Mekong region, which borders Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, started out as casinos tied into the regional money laundering of the proceeds from drug trafficking and other criminal activity.

But there has been a significant evolution, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which casinos have changed their business model and moved into the online space, especially scamming and cyberfraud.

They are essentially turning into criminal service providers by selling cybercrime, scamming and money laundering services, but also data harvesting and disinformation.

UN News/Daniel Dickinson
Workers who break the rules are fined or more often, beaten.
Tweet URL


Technology, like generative artificial intelligence (AI), is evolving so quickly, and that will really change the way these places operate by creating new opportunities for the scammers to make money.

UN News: How concerned should we be about what’s happening now and what could happen in the future?

These scam farms are places of innovation in a way because they’re far ahead of other parts of the economy, and that really doesn’t bode well for the future.

AI expands the scope and the scale at which a scam farm can operate. You’re not going to need a thousand people to run scams on a text-based cell phone; you just need a well programmed application to do it for you.

That’s where the real threat for the future lies. It’s a great concern for us from the UNODC as it has potentially serious implications for people around the world.

UN News: How are countries responding?

There is a growing gap between the speed these technologies are developing and being adopted by organised crime networks and the responses that governments in the region have at their disposal to address these issues. It is a regional problem with global implications. These scam operations are still predominantly based in this region, however, we do see some small operations in places like South America and Africa.

This is an extremely complex issue. It is not possible for one country by itself to address it, not least because these operations, even if you address them in one place, will just move to another country where there is less enforcement pressure on them.

So, what is needed is a regional response, and UNODC can support that effort. We can bring countries together and help them to agree on priorities and strategies to fight organised crime.


UN News: How much political will is there to do that?

At the moment, we see a strong push in the region to cooperate on addressing this issue. The Philippines, as well as countries in the Mekong region and China, are working together, conducting joint operations, discussing priorities and exchanging information at a scale that in the past was not the case. That is very positive.

At the same time, we continue to see a law enforcement-focused response to these issues rather than a more strategic whole-of-government response. The more countries work together, share expertise and information, and the more countries in the region also receive support from countries elsewhere in the world and organizations like UNODC, the better they can be prepared to address this issue.

Getting ahead of this issue will be incredibly difficult. We have no illusions that it will take a very long time, time that we don’t have with this technological change.

A large, online Cambodian platform used for cryptocurrency scams


Elliptic, a British blockchain analysis company, exposes a marketplace called HuiOne Guarantee, which also involves Hun To, cousin of current Prime Minister Hun Manet. Chinese groups are involved in the illicit business. Worth US$ 11 billion dollars, it ranges from money laundering to pig butchering scams.

Phnom Penh (AsiaNews) - Cryptocurrency experts have discovered that an online marketplace called HuiOne Guarantee is used by a vast network of cybercriminals in Southeast Asia, especially in Cambodia, who exploit various types of online scams, including the pig butchering scam, to fuel the criminal business.

According to a report by Elliptic (a British blockchain analytics company with offices in London, New York, and Singapore), the platform's merchants offer “technology, data and money laundering services s" used for illicit transactions "totaling at least billion".

For Elliptic, which reported the new cryptocurrency-related scandal, the virtual area where exchanges take place is an integral part of HuiOne Group, a Cambodian conglomerate whose executives have forged close ties with the Hun family, from the father Hun Sen, who served as prime minister for decades, to his son Manet, who succeeded him in 2023.

In particular, Hun To, cousin to the current prime minister, heads one of the units of the HuiOne Group linked to crypto fraud. Precisely this link, according to experts, makes investigations more complicated and risks letting criminals go unpunished.

In addition, another HuiOne business, HuiOne International Payments, is involved globally in laundering proceeds from scams.

Online scams have led to the theft of tens of billions of dollars from millions of victims around the world.

The most common scheme is the pig butchering scam, whereby scammers "fatten up" victims in fake investment programs and then steal what they have accumulated.

Other scams involve Ponzi schemes, impersonation of family members and sextortion.

According to a report by the US Institute of Peace, many of these scams are perpetrated by transnational organised groups originating in China, operating in Southeast Asian countries, especially Myanmar, Laos, the Philippines, and Cambodia, exploiting regional conflicts, corruption, and the growth of lawless special economic zones.

According to its website, HuiOne's financial services arm is said to have 500,000 registered users. It also touts Alipay, Huawei, PayGo Wallet, UnionPay, and Yes Seatel as its customers.

In some cases, unwitting people in Asia and Africa are lured to the region with the promise of well-paying jobs, only to be trapped in scam compounds run by Chinese thugs who also use electric shackles to keep migrant workers from escaping.

This practice, the US institute points out, is spreading rapidly across Asia.

Founded in 2021, HuiOne Guarantee includes a network of thousands of instant messaging app channels on Telegram operated by different merchants.

Although it claims to serve as a marketplace for real estate and cars, according to Elliptic, most of the goods and services offered are for cyber scam operators.

“The largest category of merchants operating on HuiOne Guarantee are those offering to move and exchange money," the company explained.

"Many of the merchants explicitly offer money laundering services, including accepting payments from victims around the world, transferring it across borders and converting it to other assets including cash, stablecoins, and to Chinese payment apps."

According to data shared by SlowMist in early January, merchants associated with HuiOne Guarantee have reportedly carried out additional cryptocurrency transactions with a wallet that received more than 4.6 million USDT from another wallet linked to the Myanmar Alliance Army.

"The value of cryptocurrency received by HuiOne Guarantee and its merchants, and the type of goods and services offered, suggest that it is a key enabler of cyber scam operators in Southeast Asia," Elliptic said.