Your Data Is Not Safe: Romance, Jobs & Chinese App Scams | Snigdha Poonam | FO474 Raj Shamani

Poonam says scam operations have owners, executioners and workers, and that scam bosses think of themselves as startup founders, with motivational quotes on office walls.

She explains how a user is pushed to buy a VIP package to open a photo or chat, and how the photos are stolen from the internet so the person on the other side may not exist.

Poonam says in some scam lands women act as executioners because they are seen as more trustworthy, while the person who runs the whole gang or mafia may be a man.

She describes ads that promise jobs without showing your face and with salary details, followed by interview invitations from companies, and says working in an office felt safer to many women.

Poonam reports that raids took place on two such companies in Gurgaon, and that people she spoke to there talked openly, noting they had not committed any murder or violent crime.

She says that when the ED began looking into this, the figure being mentioned was 4000 crore rupees that had gone out of India, and that the apps were largely made by Chinese companies.

Poonam describes a scheme where a death is not registered, a life insurance policy is taken in the dead person's name with the widow, and then the death is declared months later, with signatures at village level, and even invented people appearing in cases.