Scam Inc: Online scams may be as big a scourge as illegal drugs (opens in new tab)

I listened to the accompanying podcast, it was so engrossing and the narrative was so compelling I binged the entire 8 episodes. It starts out with a bank in Kansas whose CEO had burned $47 million USD on a crypto scam. A woman, who by all estimations, was a smart, competent, self-directed adult was scammed out of $150K, not just her own money, but borrowed from her family, and took out a loan for $35K at a ruinous interest rate of 26%. There's a whole lawless world and physical cities operating these scams. When I hear the victims' account of how they were scammed, I was just beyond belief because their actions were so far out from the norm. They themselves acknowledge this when they recount their actions in hindsight.

Just like people who ask, how can you forget your baby/pet in the backseat of a car. It sounds outlandish but it happens, to all kinds of smart people. How can you give ten thousand dollars to someone on the internet, who you've chatted with but never met? And yet it happens and continues to happen. My takeaway of the comment elements for victims: loneliness (and neediness) and a tiny big of greed. This is not a condemnation, we are all greedy in some dimension. The scammers were successful because they presented a picture of readily available affluence, everyone is swimming in it, it seems so easy, why not me. Another vector of why social media is poison. I found this series fascinating!

Kansas banker sentenced to prison https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/crime/2024/08/20/kansas-...

Shwe Kokko https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c04nx1vnw17o

Thailand Cuts Electricity to Scam Sanctuaries Across Myanmar Border https://thediplomat.com/2025/02/thailand-cuts-electricity-to...

What is a pig-butchering scam https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-pig-butchering-scam/

HN threads:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41314542

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42971059

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39778486