Workslop + UK ID cards + Thailand and Cambodia’s casino spat

Scamurai weekly newsletter #11. Sept. 26, 2025.

- Scamurai -

Weekly newsletter #11. Sept. 26, 2025.

Get in touch at callan@scamurai.io.

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Members of the Bai family crime group were brought to China from Myanmar in early 2024. Photo: Xinhua.

// Headlines

• Twenty-one members of the notorious Bai crime family went on trial in Shenzhen this week, accused of running a vast criminal empire out of Myanmar. Bai Suocheng and Bai Yingcang face charges including fraud, kidnapping, murder and drug trafficking. They have allegedly using the family’s private armed forces to build casinos and crime hubs in the Kokang region since 2009. Prosecutors say the group’s operations caused six deaths, injured several others and raked in more than RMB20 billion (US$2.8 billion) through gambling and telecom scams. Bai Yingcang is also accused of producing and trafficking 11 tons of methamphetamine. The court adjourned on Sept. 22 and will deliver a verdict at a later date.

• South Korean police said Sept. 22 they dismantled a Pattaya-based crime syndicate accused of swindling 21 billion won ($15 million) from 878 victims through a web of online and phone scams. Authorities arrested members of the group, known as the Longge Company, with 21 suspects now in custody in South Korea and nine others detained in Thailand pending extradition. The schemes ranged from bogus investment pitches and romance scams to a “no-show scam” that tricked small businesses into paying inflated bills for fake suppliers. The crackdown followed a June raid on a Pattaya resort in which Thai police arrested 20 suspects.

• Thailand has denied involvement in online scamming operations following a Reuters investigation linking Thai immigration officials to the trafficking of people into scam centres in Myanmar. The report, published Sept. 18, said purported immigration officials at Bangkok’s international airports escorted victims from Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia through Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport upon arrival in the country between 2022 and 2025. Kenya’s ambassador to Thailand, Lindsay Kiptiness, said he provided detailed information to Thai authorities about the behaviour of airport officials but received no follow-up.

• The UK government has announced plans for compulsory ID cards for all citizens, a move which has prompted backlash from rights groups and swift condemnation from the country’s opposition parties. The plans were not a feature of the ruling Labour Party’s election manifesto prior to it coming to power last year, but it is hoping to use them to curb illegal work and modernise the UK. To those in countries where national IDs have long been the norm, the outcry against this in the UK may seem odd. Yet the introduction of ID cards remains a controversial national issue. The idea was last seriously floated under Tony Blair two decades ago.

• Some reactions:

  • Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said it was a “desperate gimmick”.

  • Reform UK added that it was “cynical ploy to fool voters that something is being done about illegal immigration” which would “impinge further on the freedoms of law-abiding Brits”.

  • The Liberal Democrats said “people shouldn’t be turned into criminals just because they can’t have a digital ID”.

  • Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called it an “affront to our civil liberties”.

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// Scam sheet

• A Singaporean court convicted citizen R. Shanmugaratnam and Briton James Henry O’Sullivan on Sept. 22 of falsifying accounts linked to nearly €1.1 billion (S$1.7 billion) supposedly held in escrow for the collapsed German payments company Wirecard. Shanmugaratnam, a former director at Citadelle Corporate Services, issued false balance confirmation letters from 2016 to 2018, with O’Sullivan abetting him on several. Sentencing is expected in November. Austrian ex-Wirecard COO Jan Marsalek remains wanted by Interpol.

• Speaking of Jan, Der Spiegel reported on Sept. 24 that he’s currently in Moscow working for the FSB.

• The FBI last week warned of threat actors spoofing its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) website, which handles reports of cybercrime such as hacking, identity theft and ransomware. Criminals are creating fake sites using slight spelling changes or different domains to trick users and steal personal information, including banking details. The Bureau cautioned that anyone trying to file a complaint could be directed to these fake sites, putting their data at risk.

• The EU is examining whether Apple, Google, Microsoft and Booking.com are adequately blocking scam apps, fake banking apps and fraudulent listings. Apple defended its approach, saying its anti-fraud measures have prevented over $9 billion in fraudulent transactions in the past five years.

• Influencer Taino Lopez has been charged by the SEC with conducting a series of fraudulent securities offerings, misusing investor funds and making Ponzi-like payments to investors. Between 2020 and 2022, he and several other defendants raised $112 million for purchasing and reviving well known but insolvent companies like RadioShack.

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// Hacks & dark markets

• The UK’s National Crime Agency has arrested a man in connection with a ransomware attack on Collins Aerospace that disrupted airports worldwide last weekend. The attack, which began Sept. 19, affected software used for check-ins and baggage handling, causing hundreds of flight cancellations and delays at airports including London Heathrow, Berlin Brandenburg and Brussels. The suspect, a man in his forties from West Sussex, was released on conditional bail as the investigation continues.

• A suspected teenage member of the Scattered Spider hacking group was arrested in Las Vegas earlier this month for computer intrusion, extortion and identity theft linked to casino attacks between August and October 2023. The Clark County DA in Nevada is seeking to try him as an adult. The arrest follows similar actions in the UK, where two teenage Scattered Spider members were detained for a cyberattack on Transport for London.

• Kaspersky has warned that the hotel-hacking group “RevengeHotels” is now using AI-generated malware to enhance its attacks. Between June and August, the group deployed phishing emails carrying a remote access trojan called VenomRAT, targeting hotel staff and giving attackers access to guest cards and personal data. While Brazil has been hardest hit, Kaspersky noted incidents are appearing in other countries, particularly Spanish-speaking ones.

• The U.S. Secret Service dismantled a network of over 300 SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards in the New York tristate area used to target senior government officials with telecommunications threats, it announced on Sept. 23. The devices were all discovered within 35 miles of the UN General Assembly meeting. The set-up enabled anonymous calls, denial-of-service attacks and encrypted communications. Early analysis suggests some communications involved known individuals linked to nation-state actors. The investigation is ongoing.

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// Proof of stupidity

I quake in fear at the thought of the clearly superior intelligences created by Big Tech taking my job.

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// Scam factories

• Taiwan has seen a sharp rise in arrests of foreigners for illegal money collection and scams, with 1,066 detained so far in 2025, up from 87 in 2023. Many were Southeast Asians lured by social media ads promising easy money, often entering on short-term visas or as migrant workers. Authorities are working with foreign consulates to educate potential recruits, share intelligence on criminal networks and flag high-risk individuals.

• Thailand’s naval commander, Admiral Jirapol Wongwit, has challenged Cambodia over a newly built casino in a disputed border area of Trat province, insisting the land is Thai territory. He urged Cambodia to demolish the building or hand it over to Thailand, warning that escalation is possible if the country remains uncooperative.

• In Cambodia, three South Korean nationals have been placed in pre-trial detention following raids on Sept. 17 on a suspected scam operation in Phnom Penh, the capital. Sing Song Hun, 48, Song Eungyu, 21, and Park Yeongun, 26, were charged with aggravated fraud through an organised network, while 45 other suspects, including fellow South Koreans, Cambodians and Vietnamese, were identified as victims and are now facing deportation. South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun has also urged Cambodia this week to address the rising number of job scams targeting South Koreans, citing concerns about organised cybercrime networks.

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// Big tech & big crypto

• Social media platform X reported it was targeted by a bribery network that paid intermediaries to try to reinstate banned accounts linked to crypto scams. The alleged perpetrators also operate on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Minecraft and Roblox, and are connected to broader criminal organisations, including “The Com”. X said legal proceedings are underway.

• Former Meta executive Sarah Wynn-Williams, author of the exposé Careless People, is reportedly “on the verge of bankruptcy” due to a gagging order and potential fines of $50,000 for each breach of a non-disparagement agreement signed when she left the company in 2017. The book alleges Meta worked closely with Beijing on censorship tools and criticises the company’s treatment of teenagers, claims Meta denies.

• Democratic lawmakers Sean Casten and Jeff Merkley urged the SEC to examine Tron founder Justin Sun’s investments in Trump-backed crypto projects, including $TRUMP and WLFI tokens, citing potential conflicts of interest and foreign influence risks. Sun’s WLFI tokens were recently frozen by the Trump-backed project, leaving him unable to access roughly 600 million tokens.

• Singapore has given Meta until the end of September to implement measures, including facial recognition, to curb impersonation scams on Facebook. Failure to comply could result in fines of up to S$1 million ($777,000), with additional penalties of up to S$100,000 ($78,000) per day after the deadline. The directive follows a rise in scams using fake accounts and ads impersonating government officials between June 2024 and June 2025.

• Sam Bankman-Fried’s verified X account briefly drew attention on Sept. 24 after posting a message despite federal inmates being barred from direct social media access. The operator of the account, who remains unidentified, claimed that Bankman-Fried was not posting himself and that a friend was managing the account on his behalf. The founder of FTX is serving a 25-year sentence after being convicted on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy for misappropriating billions in customer funds. The episode follows a similar revival of Elizabeth Holmes’ social media presence, also allegedly managed on her behalf by an unnamed individual. The message from Bankman-Fried’s account coincided with a surge in trading of FTX’s now-bankrupt exchange token, FTT.

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// Podcasts & shows

Scamurai: Ep. #5 Social engineering, AI and security in crypto with Stefan Beyer

This episode looks at the risks of social engineering attacks and AI-driven hacking methods. Plus, Callan and Stefan discuss state-sponsored hacking and how vulnerable critical infrastructure is to attacks. (Spotify // iTunes)

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// ScamurAI

• DeepSeek has revealed that its R1 model was trained for just $249,000, significantly lower than comparable AI models from American companies, which can cost millions to develop. The lab used 512 Nvidia H800 chips and optimised older hardware to reduce costs, allowing it to offer R1 to users at $0.14 per million tokens, far below OpenAI’s $7.50 equivalent rate. Experts have questioned whether the figure includes all development expenses, but it remains a small fraction of typical AI training budgets.

• A study by BetterUp Labs and Stanford Social Media Lab found that over-reliance on AI is generating low-quality outputs, termed “workslop”. About 40% of surveyed employees reported receiving AI-generated work that required correction or redoing, shifting effort from the creator to the recipient. The phenomenon is most common in professional services and tech, with workslop authors seen as less capable by peers and managers. On average, recipients spent nearly two extra hours addressing these issues, highlighting gaps between AI’s productivity promises and actual outcomes. “I had to waste more time following up on the information and checking it with my own research. I then had to waste even more time setting up meetings with other supervisors to address the issue. Then I continued to waste my own time having to redo the work myself,” one respondent said.

• Spotify will introduce AI protection measures, the company said on Sept. 25. They include AI disclosures for music, spam filters and stronger impersonation rules.

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// Eyeroll

Believe what the Stanford grads tell you, kids.

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// Law & disorder

• A Chinese executive has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for trafficking chemicals used to produce fentanyl in the U.S. Qingzhou Wang, 37, of Amarvel Biotech, and marketing manager Yiyi Chen, 33, were convicted in New York of importing fentanyl precursors and money laundering. Wang shipped hundreds of kilos of fentanyl-related chemicals disguised as ordinary goods.

• A federal court has denied Justin Sun’s attempt to block Bloomberg from publishing details of his $3 billion-plus cryptocurrency holdings, including 60 billion TRX, 17,000 BTC and 224,000 ETH. Judge Colm Connolly found Sun failed to prove Bloomberg promised confidentiality or that disclosure would increase his personal risk.

• Two U.S. senators are pressing Match Group, owner of Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid, to explain how its platforms are preventing romance scams. Senators Maggie Hassan and Marsha Blackburn warned on Sept. 24 that the apps’ algorithms could inadvertently foster trust that scammers exploit, and they’ve given the company until Oct. 15 to provide evidence of anti-fraud measures.

• Amazon will pay $2.5 billion to the Federal Trade Commission to settle a suit accusing it of using deceptive methods to entice users to sign up for Prime and then making it difficult to cancel. Amazon will also need to make changes to its sign up processes. “[This is a] monumental win for the millions of Americans who are tired of deceptive subscriptions that feel impossible to cancel,” said FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson.

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// Digital rights

• At a UN event on protecting children online, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced that Greece is considering banning social media use for children under 16. He warned that current social media practices are “an unprecedented experiment on our children’s minds” and stressed the need for global cooperation to safeguard young users.

• A new cross-party group of MPs and peers is pushing for greater support and rights for Britain’s online content creators, amid concerns they struggle to access equipment, funding and even mortgages. YouTube also typically takes a 45% cut of advertising revenue from creators’ channels, a point of contention for the new parliamentary group. Influencers like are collectively worth £2.2 billion to the UK economy (ed’s note: this isn’t actually a lot, the UK’s annual GDP is in the trillions).

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