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April 22, 2025
Love, Lies & Digital Crime: The Global Web of Romance Scams
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Southeast Asia-based cyberscams generate tens of billions for criminal syndicates, research shows.
In "Love, Lives and Digital Crime: The Global Web of Romance Scams"—an episode in the podcast Somewhere on Earth—we uncover the dark side of the internet where romance scams flourish across major technology platforms, and the heartbreaking consequences they leave in their wake. Victims are deceived by online personas, only to find themselves emotionally betrayed and financially devastated. But the story doesn’t stop there.
Freelance journalist and Pulitzer Center Rainforest Investigations Network Fellow Emily Fishbein takes us deep into the criminal underworld operating in post-coup Myanmar, where trafficked individuals are forced into running these scams under threat and coercion.
Fishbein shares findings from her pre-fellowship work featured in Al Jazeera and the MIT Technology Review. This episode explores the intersection of technology, organized crime, and human vulnerability, shedding light on how digital platforms have become unwitting hosts to industrial-scale scams.
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