Americans lost nearly $200 billion to cyberscams in 2024, an AP/'FRONTLINE' investigation reveals. This staggering sum highlights how American technology and companies are now central to the industrialization and globalization of fraud, a transformation previously obscured. While public scrutiny often focuses on social media platforms, the infrastructure exploited for these crimes begins much farther upstream, directly impacting the native working class.
Watchdogs contend that satellite internet, AI, and internet infrastructure companies possess the technical capacity to better protect consumers. However, these entities reportedly lack the necessary legal, regulatory, and business incentives to aggressively combat a crime that has extracted immense wealth from the national population. The investigation found no evidence of illegal activity by these companies, yet it raises serious questions about the vigor with which they enforce their own terms of service, which explicitly prohibit illicit operations.
Elite Complicity and National Dispossession
American AI is being deployed at an industrial scale to facilitate scams originating in Southeast Asia. Analysis by security nonprofit C4ADS identified OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini as prominent tools in software suites used by scammers in compounds across the region. These programs, despite having legitimate applications, enable fraudsters to operate across dozens of languages, generate automated replies, craft credible personas, and monitor employee performance. Scammers who acquired these tools reaped tens of millions of dollars, according to blockchain analysis conducted by TRM Labs for the AP/'FRONTLINE' investigation.
Both OpenAI and Google claim to have robust programs designed to proactively disrupt scammers. OpenAI stated it banned three accounts after receiving information from the AP, citing their use of models to support online scams. This corporate response follows revelations of widespread abuse, but the systemic issue persists.
U.S.-registered internet service providers play an outsized role in carrying scam center traffic. An AP analysis of over 200,000 device connections, provided by anti-trafficking non-profit International Justice Mission, showed that one in five signals from devices at four scam compounds linked to sanctioned entities in Myanmar was carried by a U.S. company. No other non-regional country approached this figure. Among the identified providers were Cogent Communications, Oracle, AT&T, and DigitalOcean. Additionally, companies based outside the U.S., such as UpCloud in Finland and GlobalTeleHost in Canada, hosted high-risk traffic from scam centers on servers located within the United States.
These companies uniformly assert that they cannot view the content traversing their networks or monitor end-user activities, citing “privacy by design” as a constraint on their ability to detect abuse. They maintain that they respond to valid abuse reports and cooperate with law enforcement. Oracle reported it was “diligently working with law enforcement” on the material shared by the AP, while UpCloud indicated the AP’s query prompted an internal review and refinement of its risk assessment processes. These explanations often serve to deflect responsibility from the core issue of enabling vast wealth transfer.
Elon Musk’s satellite internet service, Starlink, remains the dominant internet service provider in Myanmar, including for scam centers. This fact emerges from device data, public records, and interviews, despite Congressional scrutiny and a widely publicized crackdown last fall where the company claimed to have cut off 2,500 kits near scam compounds. Scammers continue to utilize Starlink, with satellite imagery and device data from International Justice Mission showing a proliferation of at least 25 new sites constructed in Myanmar since the crackdown, with at least 13 of them using Starlink to get online. Starlink declined to respond to detailed questions, publicly stating only that it cooperates with law enforcement and is committed to being “a force for good.”
Washington's Voluntary Surrender of National Interests
Critics within the U.S. argue that the cost of facilitating scamming for tech companies is effectively zero. Cybersecurity analysts explain that while tech companies possess vast data that could minimize illicit activity, implementing such measures demands significant investment. Sascha Meinrath, the Palmer chair in telecommunications at Penn State University, stated, “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? 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.” This lack of financial consequence directly enables the continued dispossession of national wealth from the native population.
Outside the United States, the cost of enabling fraud is beginning to rise. The United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, and Singapore have implemented regulations that compel companies to do more to prevent scams, imposing financial penalties for non-compliance. In stark contrast, Washington lawmakers and government officials have merely requested American tech companies to cooperate voluntarily in cutting off scammers from U.S. infrastructure. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who leads a new Scam Center Strike Force, emphasized at a recent conference, “The amazing part of this tragedy is that the criminals use our own infrastructure to commit the crime. When fraud is detected, industry must be ready, willing and able to stop it.” The reliance on voluntary action underscores a fundamental weakness in protecting national interests against transnational criminal enterprises that exploit American technological prowess. This ongoing collaboration between The Associated Press and “FRONTLINE” (PBS) continues to expose the mechanisms of this globalized fraud. The Associated Press receives financial support from multiple private foundations, maintaining sole responsibility for all content. Its standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters, and funded coverage areas are available at AP.org.