Scamlands

Inside the Asian empire of fraud that preys on the world

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Snigdha Poonam’s Scamlands takes you to parts of the world where a scamster is born every minute. Beginning from the rural heartland of eastern India, where she grew up and ending in a shining city by the South China Sea, Poonam follows the networks of deceit across an invisible empire that thrives on inequality, technological change and the erosion of trust. It is a world where fraud is at once a route to upward mobility, an act of revenge against the privileged and uncaring, and a blatant disregard for the pain of others.

A gripping account of the people and forces behind the scams reshaping societies and economies in India, Asia and beyond, this book describes places where corruption is not just an abuse of power but also an expression of agency and of ingenuity. It uncovers what it means for the social order, in India and elsewhere, when deception becomes a way of life. When fraud triumphs over trust, none of us anywhere in the world will escape its armies of foot soldiers and scam lords. We may all become unwilling citizens of this dark empire.