AI Fan Mail Exposes Philippine Scam Compounds — SkimNews
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- Berlin Book Club’s founder requested payment via CashApp or a direct bank transfer, then supplied a physical address in the Philippines after several days of insisting on cash.
- Philippines cybercrime investigators received the sender’s details after the author withheld payment; the address led to a rural road containing a large building hidden behind high white walls.
- Bamban was the site of a raid on a scam facility that freed nearly 700 people trapped and forced to work as scammers; roughly half were Filipino, while others had been trafficked from China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia and Rwanda.
- Alice Guo, the local mayor, was identified as the operator of the Bamban compound when authorities shut it down.
- Anthropic agreed last year to pay $1.5 billion in compensation to thousands of authors whose copyrighted work was used to train Claude.
- Google faced a July lawsuit from a group of publishers alleging that it used copyrighted material to train Gemini, describing the practice as “one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history.”
- Winston Casio said criminals’ wealth gave them the financial capability to corrupt almost anyone in Philippine public office, describing the money as a potent tool against law enforcement.
Why it matters: Authors are losing twice: their copyrighted work now supports convincing impersonations, while scam compounds seek hundreds of dollars per target through a multi-billion-dollar criminal industry. Anthropic’s $1.5bn copyright settlement and AI firms’ profits leave the tools’ makers and operators richly rewarded, while Philippine authorities say corruption obstructs enforcement.
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