On Southeast Asia's scam compounds.

Mark Bo, organised-crime researcher and co-author of Scam, talks to Alex and Lee about his book, his experiences and why this fusion of gangsterism and speculation has taken root in the contemporary economy.

• What is the scale of the scam industry?

• How do scams like pig butchering, fish butchering, or law-enforcement impersonation work?

• How does organised crime structure itself on corporate lines? How does this fit with modern slavery?

• Do illicit zones signal the coming of a kind of "compound capitalism"? Is scamming a symptom of the death of the developmental state?

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Links:

Scam: Inside Southeast Asia’s Cybercrime Compounds, Ivan Franceschini, Ling Li, and Mark Bo, Verso