Shorter ticket lines, more interactive displays on the cards for Singapore’s tourist attractions

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DATA ANALYTICS, SELF- SERVICE TICKETINGKIOSKS

Self-service ticketing shops with facial recognition capabilities have been set up at indoor skydiving interest iFly Singapore in Sentosa to manage host check-ins as well as the research and pay processes for photos and videos taken during the trip. &nbsp,
 
In order to observe and compile visitor data, such as demographic profiles, footfall, and explore times, iFly Singapore also uses data analytical tools. These data are then used for qualified sales strategies and marketing campaigns to boost visitorship and increase average customer spend. &nbsp,
 
People used to wait at the reception desk for 10 to 15 minutes just to inquire about this waiver variety, according to Lawrence Koh, the founder and CEO of iFly Singapore. ” How do you fill it up?” and so forth. However, the majority of them will have already registered online at this point and are only there to assess in and get a tag.
 
A customer relationship management system is used at the domestic park Kiztopia, which has numerous stores, to gather data on customers ‘ prior payments, website visits, and wedding with marketing emails.
 
As a result, Kiztopia was able to use the information to create targeted selling campaigns for their various user segments. &nbsp,
 
Additionally, it is investing in the universe system, a idea that many people may not be familiar with at the moment.
 
People have heard about it, but Heidi Tian, the chairman and chief executive officer of Kiztopia, said that in order to truly experience it and use it. &nbsp,
 
” The parents of our clients are our objective.” There is always some balancing on how much parents are ready for their children to be exposed to like interactive games because we also want the kids to play in the metaverse.

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Going undercover to reveal people smugglers’ sales tactics

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On 29 February, 2020, thousands of refugees and migrants arrived at the Pazarkule border crossing between Greece and TurkeyGetty Images
By Reha Kansara, Samrah Fatima & Jasmin Dyer
BBC Trending, BBC Urdu & BBC Newsnight

“There is nothing to be worried about. Whether they’re 12 or 18 years old, we take guys of these ages too.”

A people smuggler in Quetta, who arranges illegal routes out of Pakistan, is explaining his business model to an undercover BBC journalist. For 2.5m Pakistani rupees ($9000; £7,500), a young man can arrive in Europe “safe and sound” in approximately three weeks, he says, by crossing the border into Iran on foot and then travelling by road via Turkey to Italy. His tone is reassuring.

“He should keep snacks. He should definitely carry good quality shoes, and two or three sets of clothes. That’s it. He can buy water from Quetta. He will call upon reaching Quetta and a guy will come and receive him.”

The smuggler – Azam – claims hundreds of migrants cross the Pakistan border into Iran every day. He downplays the risks to our reporter, who is posing as a man wanting to bring his brother to the UK.

With inflation soaring in the country and the Pakistani rupee plummeting in value, many people are looking to move. Pakistani authorities have told the BBC nearly 13,000 people left Pakistan to go to Libya or Egypt in the first six months of 2023, compared with close to 7,000 in the whole of 2022.

Often the journeys they take are dangerous. In June, hundreds of migrants died after a cramped fishing vessel sank off the coast of Greece. At least 350 Pakistanis were thought to be on board.

“Even if he gets caught [along the way], he is only going to end up back at home. No-one is going to kidnap him and ask for ransom,” Azam says.

But migrants who attempt to travel via Libya can fall prey to militias and criminal gangs. One Pakistani man we spoke to, who used a people smuggler to travel to Italy, says he was kidnapped and imprisoned for three months in Libya.

Saeed (not his real name) says he was only released after his family paid a ransom of $2,500 (£2,000).

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‘DM for game’

Many smugglers are operating in plain sight on mainstream social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok – through accounts that have tens of thousands of followers.

Since May, the BBC has been monitoring social media accounts promoting illegal migration routes. We have found that the smugglers’ tactics are concealed by a web of euphemisms that enable them to sidestep content moderation and law enforcement. They arrange trips and payments privately via direct messages and WhatsApp.

Code words like “dunki” and “game” are used to promote illegal routes to Europe. “Dunki” refers to boat crossings and “game” describes the journeys that migrants will take from start to finish.

BBC Sounds

You can listen to “BBC Trending: Exposing people smugglers” on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds

The three most common routes from Pakistan transit through Turkey, Iran or Libya before reaching their final destination in Europe.

Since the Greek migrant boat disaster, people smugglers we monitored have been increasingly promoting “taxi games” – shorthand for routes by road through Eastern Europe – as the favoured smuggling method.

Smugglers’ social media accounts post videos of groups of migrants hiding in woods and running into minivans, with agents’ names and mobile phone numbers superimposed on top. On WhatsApp, customers and “agents” exchange messages about the next “game” in group chats with hundreds of members.

Azam specialises in “taxi games”, claiming they are safer than sea routes. But there are risks to those land routes too.

The UNHCR – the UN’s refugee agency – says freezing temperatures in winter as migrants attempt to cross borders on foot, as well as road accidents, have resulted in deaths.

Graphic showing Saeed's route to Turkey

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Five other smugglers we spoke to also recommended “taxi routes”. One said he could get someone to the UK from France for £1,000 ($1,228).

We put our evidence to Meta, which owns Facebook and WhatsApp, and TikTok – that their platforms are being used to promote illegal people smuggling.

Meta took down all links to the Facebook groups and pages we flagged to them, but did not take down the profiles attached to them. It did not remove WhatsApp groups, because its policy of end-to-end encryption protects privacy and does not allow for moderation.

TikTok took down the links to the accounts we alerted them to. It says the company “has zero tolerance for content that facilitates human smuggling” and “removed accounts and content that violate their policies”.

Man with a beard looks through a small window in a metal door

‘Journey of death’

Saeed left his town in Pakistani-administered Kashmir almost a year ago because of a lack of employment opportunities for young men in his area – and clashes along the border with Indian-administered Kashmir. He lived very close to the Line of Control – the de facto border between India and Pakistan in the contested region – but has been in Italy for 10 months.

He says he was influenced to come to Europe by a combination of TikTok videos he saw online and by a friend who had left Pakistan a few months before him.

“I heard that it’s very simple to come here and it would take about 15-20 days. But it was all a lie. It took me more than seven months,” he says.

Saeed is awaiting the outcome of his asylum claim in Italy and says he now regrets taking the illegal route, calling it “a journey of death”. But he regularly posts videos on TikTok of his new life in Italy.

A few clips document his route from Pakistan, mostly showing an excited young man on his journey. These upbeat videos follow a TikTok trend which many young Pakistani men like him, who arrive in Europe, have participated in.

In one video captioned “Pakistan to Libya”, a friend he travelled with films them both, selfie-style, sitting on a plane, smiling.

He says that it’s “just a form of art” to post videos like this and argues they are “not a true reflection of society”.

Two weeks after our undercover journalist first contacts the smuggler, we call him again – this time revealing we are BBC journalists.

When we challenge Azam about the dangers of the illegal routes he is promoting, he hangs up.

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Managing director stabbed pregnant wife to death after inaccurate company report showed poor numbers

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Warning: This story mentions suicide and contains descriptions of a suicide attempt.

SINGAPORE: A managing director of a training company who suffered insomnia after mistakenly thinking his business was failing stabbed his wife and their unborn child to death.

David Brian Chow Kwok-Hun began ruminating on the financial health of his company after receiving a half-year financial report from an accounting employee that showed low-performing numbers.

The numbers were later found to be inaccurate. Despite his family encouraging him and trying to seek help for him, Chow made up his mind to kill himself and his wife, in order to “save” her and their unborn child from any debtors.

After another night of insomnia, he grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed his pregnant wife to death.

He then tried to kill himself but was unsuccessful and decided to call the police to avoid implicating his father who was on his way to fetch him.

Chow, a 35-year-old Singaporean, pleaded guilty on Thursday (Oct 26) to one charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

He had been suffering from adjustment disorder with anxious and depressed mood at the time of the offence and qualified for the partial defence of diminished responsibility.

The court heard that Chow and the victim, 30-year-old Isabel Elizabeth Francis, registered their marriage in 2019 and lived together in a flat since May 2021.

Chow was the managing director of KnowledgeTree Training Centre, a training company providing workforce skills qualifications and other courses.

In December 2021, he asked for the company’s half-year financial report from his accounting staff. 

When he received the report, he went through the numbers and felt there must have been an error, as the numbers were unusually low. He asked the employee to check again and get back.

In January 2022, the accounting staff got back to Chow and confirmed that the numbers were accurate.

It was later revealed that the numbers were wrong and were not an accurate representation of the company’s financial health.

DESCENT INTO TROUBLED THOUGHTS

Chow began thinking that the company was not doing well and would probably run into failure. This was despite the fact that it had been profitable, racking up S$1 million (US$729,000) in earlier profits.

Between Jan 5 and Jan 7 in 2022, Chow began losing sleep. He was worried and stressed over the company finances and slept only one to two hours per night on average. His family members, wife and colleagues noticed his behaviour.

When Chow spoke to the manager of his company about finances on Jan 8, 2022, the manager saw that he looked stressed and noted that the company was still making a profit.

Chow’s mother and brother also met him to talk about the finances and assured him that the company was still making a profit.

Because of what the company earned over the years, it was in a financially sound position to weather the next two years. 

His parents also had dinner with him to encourage him and assure him that everything would be fine.

Chow’s wife booked a counselling session with a counsellor to help him deal with his work stress, but Chow continued losing sleep over the finances.

He began seeing things in his head if he closed his eyes, including images of soldiers marching, a devil and “a scary dog”.

His family members continued trying to reach out to Chow. His father made an appointment for him to see a psychiatrist and arranged to ferry him to work.

Chow tried listing down his problems on a counselling worksheet and felt slightly better, but still could not sleep.

At about 1am on Jan 11, 2022, Chow began pacing up and down the corridor of his flat in Ang Mo Kio.

He continued ruminating over his business concerns and looking at the LinkedIn profiles of business competitors.

He logged into an e-learning portal and realised his employee still had not rectified an issue that was earlier pointed out, and was concerned that his mother would scold the employee, who would leave.

The managing director was also worried about his employees quitting and losing confidence in him, as they had noticed him breaking down.

THE DAY OF THE KILLING

From 3am to 4am that day, he began having suicidal thoughts – the first time he had such thoughts, court documents showed. He was worried that his wife would feel shame from having a husband who took his own life.

If his business failed, he fretted that others would go after his wife and unborn child.

The man felt he had to do something, and thought of killing his wife to spare her and their unborn child, so they could “go to heaven” while he killed himself, said the prosecution.

At about 5am, Chow took a knife from the kitchen and headed to the master bedroom, where his wife lay sleeping on her side.

He turned her and thrust the knife into her abdomen, telling her: “Sorry, I have no way out.”

He then stabbed her multiple times in her head, neck, abdomen and back until she stopped moving.

After killing his wife, Kwok checked the peephole of his main door to make sure no one had been alerted by his wife’s screams.

He tried various ways to end his life, including stabbing himself with another knife and asking the “devil to take him”, said the prosecution, adding that he also took an assortment of tablets.

Chow realised his father had sent him a message saying he was on his way to fetch him. Chow decided to call the police to tell them that he had killed his wife, as he did not want to implicate his father.

He also did not want his father to see the state that he and his wife were in, so he called his father and asked him not to come over. After calling the police, Chow unlocked the main door and lay down to wait.

The police and paramedics arrived shortly after and the victim was pronounced dead while Chow was taken to hospital and arrested.

An autopsy of Chow’s wife found that she had died of stab wounds to her back and neck. She had suffered 10 stab wounds and five incised wounds on her head, neck and torso, two of which were fatal.

An autopsy was also done on the foetus, which was found to be a girl of about 15 weeks’ gestational age. It would not survive at such an age if it had been born, medical reports stated.

Chow was assessed by an associate consultant from the Institute of Mental Health, who found that he was suffering from adjustment disorder with anxious and depressed mood at the time of the offence.

While the IMH doctor and the defence psychiatrist had different diagnoses of the subtype of adjustment disorder Chow suffered, they agreed that he had symptoms of anxious and depressed mood.

Chow was found to have catastrophic thinking, fearing that he would go bankrupt and was overwhelmed by the premonition that people would go after his wife if he did.

However, his impulse control was not impaired, as he had performed goal-directed actions in killing his wife, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Jiang Ke-Yue.

Mr Jiang said Chow had penned his thoughts in the counselling sheet prior to the killing, tested the sharpness of the knife and covered his wife’s mouth before checking if anyone heard her screams.

He was not of unsound mind and was fit to plead.

The prosecution is seeking nine to 12 years’ jail for Chow.

Chow is defended by Mr Shashi Nathan, Mr Jeremy Mark Pereira and Mr U Sudharshanraj Naidu from Withers KhattarWong. His family members attended the court hearing.

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Teacher creates fake social media profiles to talk to teens about sex, sends victims obscene material

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SINGAPORE: A secondary school teacher who enjoyed discussing their physical experiences with people made the decision to create two fictitious social media profiles to do so.

Six victims, the majority of whom were in their teens, were tricked into having sex with Tay Tong Wei by pretending to be a male or female student. In addition, & nbsp,

Additionally, 36-year-old Tay sent them vulgar video or pictures that he claimed were of himself. & nbsp,

Tay admitted guilt to seven counts of electronic distribution of pornographic material and encouraging a female prey to deliver lewd videos of herself. When he is sentenced, another 40 charges of a similar essence may be taken into account. & nbsp,

Tay was a secondary school teacher at the time of the offenses. He now works as a personal tutor. & nbsp,

At the time of the crimes, the six victims — three men and three women — were between the ages of 15 and 20. To guard their identities, none of them can be named. & nbsp,

The prosecutor was informed that Tay discovered in 2013 or 2014 that talking to others about their physical experiences gave him sexual pleasure. He created two fictitious social media profiles to do this, nbsp.

One was a Jasmin-related Facebook page, and the other was made up of Facebook and Snapchat profiles of young men known as” Mikey Cool” or Mike. & nbsp,

He started chatting with a feminine victim who was 17 years old at the time as Jasmin in November 2015. The victim became comfortable with the topic because she thought Jasmin was a woman her own age when he started talking about sexual matters with her.

Mike, who was also the accused, was then introduced to the target by Jasmin, and the two immediately started talking about sex.

Tay would give her pictures and videos of people engaging in sexual acts after the victim publicly shared her intimate experiences. He claimed that Jasmin had intercourse with her partner in one of the video. & nbsp,

Mike left the defendant’s sexual toy on a chair close to their home between 2015 and 2016. It was recovered by the prey. & nbsp,

In 2017, Tay, posing as Jasmin, made friends with another girl who was then 19 years old on Facebook and asked the victim, whom she referred to as” elder sister ,” for advice on sexual matters. & nbsp,

According to Deputy Public Prosecutor Sheldon Lim,” Jasmin told( the victim ) that she had recently gotten together with her boyfriend, and asked[ the target ] how to sexually gratify him.” & nbsp,

The victim gave her advice and related her personal erotic experiences because she thought she was speaking to a younger lady. The target declined to give any videos of her and her boyfriend having sex when Jasmin asked for them.

Otherwise, the victim consented to take her nude photo after Jasmin sent a picture of what appeared to be herself. & nbsp,

In January 2016, Tay introduced himself as Jasmin to a female victim who was 15 years old through Facebook and started having expressed conversations with him. & nbsp,

” Jasmin and the victim chatted about a variety of physical issues from 2016 until June 2019.” According to court documents,” The victim would tell Jasmin about the sexual acts that he wanted to perform on her, and JaSmin would respond by telling( the victim ) about those acts. & nbsp,

Tay did the same to a different female victim who was 17 at the time and whom he had become friends with on Facebook in 2016.

On October 30, Tay may appear in court again for a imprisonment. & nbsp,

He could receive a jail sentence of up to & nbsp, three months, or both for spreading offensive material.

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Cold case solved: Stranger who sexually assaulted 6-year-old girl during hide-and-seek gets jail

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SINGAPORE: A stranger who sexually assaulted a six-year-old girl while she played hide-and-seek at the void deck of a Housing Board block was sentenced to 11 years’ jail on Monday (Oct 2).

Police solved the cold case from 2014 through DNA profiling after the offender, Lau Seng Kee, was arrested for an obscene act in front of another child last year.

His DNA matched with DNA taken from semen in the 2014 sexual assault, which had been stored in a database for eight years.

After being nabbed, Lau, now 60, admitted to police that he had previously masturbated in front of primary school girls in uniform.

He also admitted to six or seven instances when he went around looking specifically for “round-faced” young primary school girls, prosecutors said.

He pleaded guilty to one charge of aggravated sexual assault involving the six-year-old victim.

Two other charges were considered for sentencing – for sexual exploitation of the six-year-old on the same occasion in 2014, and for an obscene act committed in public in front of another young girl in 2022.

VICTIM SUFFERED “RECURRING THOUGHTS” ABOUT THE ASSAULT

Around noon on Feb 21, 2014, the six-year-old victim and her eight-year-old sister were at the void deck of a Housing and Development Board block.

The identity of the victim and the location of the offence are gagged by court order.

The sisters, who were accompanied by their maid, decided to play hide-and-seek. The victim was wearing her primary school physical education uniform at the time.

During the game, she saw Lau loitering at a staircase area in the void deck. She ignored him, but noticed that he was smiling at her from a distance.

Unable to find her sister, the victim went to search the staircase area. Lau beckoned to her to follow him and she did so, following him up a flight of stairs.

At the staircase landing, Lau turned to face the victim and suddenly exposed his private parts to her.

He made a suggestive comment to the victim and directed her to touch him and perform a sexual act. 

After the assault, Lau smiled at the victim and walked up the stairs. The girl went back down, where her sister asked where she had gone, and she told her sister what had happened.

The school bus then came and both sisters boarded it. Later that night, during dinner, the victim told her father what had happened and he lodged a police report.

During the assault, Lau’s semen got onto the girl’s shirt. DNA profiles were obtained from the semen and stored in the Health Sciences Authority’s database.

The victim saw a child psychiatrist in March 2014, who reported that the girl suffered from “recurring thoughts” about the assault.

“Despite the police’s best efforts, they were unable to establish any actionable leads and the investigative efforts ceased in 2020 after almost six years of work,” said prosecutors.

The breakthrough came in May 2022. Police got a call from a parent who identified Lau as the man who had stared at and approached his nine-year-old daughter at a playground, even offering to buy her ice cream.

While the police were interviewing Lau, a cleaner came by and told officers he had seen Lau masturbating in public about two to three weeks ago in front of a girl aged nine or 10, who was crying.

The cleaner had given chase but lost sight of Lau, and had been looking out for him ever since.

Police arrested Lau and took a DNA sample from him. It registered a cold hit against the DNA profile from the 2014 case, identifying him as the suspect.

CAUSES DEEP PUBLIC DISQUIET, SAYS PROSECUTION

During sentencing arguments, Deputy Public Prosecutors Wong Woon Kwong and Jean Goh said serious sexual crimes committed against children cause deep public disquiet.

In this case, they pointed out that the assault was carried out in broad daylight in a public housing estate against a child who was a stranger to the offender.

“This causes significant unease to the public at large and to parents in particular, who ought to be able to have their children play in HDB void decks without fear of sexual assault,” they argued.

They described Lau’s conduct as “predatory”, as he laid in wait for the victim and lured her away from her sister and maid to an isolated stairwell.

They noted the victim’s vulnerability given her age, which is significantly younger than the age ceiling of 14 years for the offence of aggravated sexual assault.

The prosecutors also argued that Lau’s 2022 offence “makes clear that the passage of time had not dampened the accused’s alarming sexual predilection for young girls”.

They sought nine-and-a-half to 11-and-a-half years’ jail for Lau, with an additional six months in lieu of 12 strokes of the cane.

Lau cannot be caned as he is above 50.

Defence counsel Kalaithasan Karuppaya and Cheryl Sim asked for a shorter sentence, highlighting that Lau pleaded guilty instead of claiming trial.

Ms Sim told the court her client was deeply apologetic and ashamed, and that he had lost his job and the trust of friends and loved ones as a result of his actions.

Justice Valerie Thean sentenced Lau to 10-and-a-half years’ jail, with an additional six months in lieu of 12 strokes of the cane.

Lau could have been jailed for eight to 20 years for the offence, which also carries a mandatory minimum penalty of at least 12 strokes of the cane.

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Humans of New York’s Brandon Stanton wades into India copyright row

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Brandon Stanton attends BookCon 2015 at Javits Center on May 31, 2015 in New York CityGetty Images
By Meryl Sebastian
BBC News

A row has broken out after the founder of popular photo blog Humans of New York criticised a similar Indian platform’s take on copyright.

Humans of Bombay, which follows the same format as Brandon Stanton’s New York blog, started in Mumbai in 2014.

It recently filed a suit against People of India, which started a few years later, of copyright infringement.

All three tell stories of people in the form of interviews or posts alongside their photos.

Earlier this month, Humans of Bombay (HOB) filed a lawsuit in the Delhi High Court saying People of India (POI) was an “identical portal/service” which had “replicated a large number of images and videos” from its platform. People of India has been summoned for a hearing on 11 October.

Founded by Drishti Saxena in 2019, POI has over two million followers on social media. In the court documents, HOB has shared screengrabs of People of India’s posts alleging that that were almost exactly like its own.

POI has not publicly commented on the lawsuit but continues to share posts on Instagram. On Saturday, it also opened an account on X.

The case made headlines in India after Stanton commented on it on Saturday on X (formerly Twitter) – “you can’t be suing people for what I’ve forgiven you for”, he posted.

Stanton said he had remained quiet about “the appropriation of my work” by Humans of Bombay because it “shares important stories”. He also pointed out that HOB had monetised their work “far past anything I’d feel comfortable doing on HONY [Humans of New York]”.

HOB responded to Stanton’s post, saying it was shocked at the “cryptic assault” on its effort to protect its intellectual property without understanding the background of the case. It added that Stanton “ought to have equipped” himself with information before commenting.

The Indian platform faced backlash from many in the country who called its lawsuit hypocritical. One user pointed out that HOB used the same tagline as HONY – “one story at a time” – on its X page.

Others questioned what copyright laws HOB adhered to while using the stories of people it interviewed for its platform.

In 2019, HOB had been criticised for publishing a flattering five-part interview of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the national elections.

In a post on X on Sunday, HOB said it was “grateful” to HONY and Stanton for “starting this storytelling movement”.

It also attempted to clarify that its case was related to intellectual property of its posts and “not about storytelling at all”.

Karishma Mehta, photographer and founder of the Facebook page 'Humans of Bombay'

Getty Images

But on Monday, Stanton released a statement saying: “For the last 13 years I haven’t received a penny for a single story told on Humans of New York, despite many millions offered.”

He said he welcomed anyone using the concept “to express something true and beautiful about their community” but did not identify with anyone using it “to create a certain lifestyle for themselves”.

In an interview to an Indian YouTube channel earlier this year, HOB founder Karishma Mehta said the platform functioned as a business that ran on ads and also collaborated with brands like Amazon, WhatsApp and Unilever for their campaigns.

Stanton’s HONY has more than 20 million followers across social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and has had its work featured in bestselling books like Humans of New York: Stories.

The project and Stanton are known for using the platform to raise money for some of the people he profiles and for causes like hurricane victims in the US and Rohingya refugees.

In 2022, the New York Magazine called him a “one-man philanthropy machine”.

The project has inspired similar platforms in other cities and countries. In his post on Saturday, Stanton said he loved the Humans of Amsterdam project run by Debra Barraud because she “stayed so true to the art, and has never viewed the stories that she shares as the ‘front end’ of a business”.

BBC News India is now on YouTube. Click here to subscribe and watch our documentaries, explainers and features.

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Women file reports against ‘farang-finding’ scam

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PUBLISHED: September 21, 2023, 4:00 p.m.

Many Thai women claim that after paying cash to a matching service on Facebook in the hopes of falling in love with an international man, they were duped.

According to the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau( CCIB ) yesterday, the women suffered a total loss of about 881 million baht.

According to CCIB official Kissana Phathanacharoen, victims reported to police alleging that an online match, whose Facebook page has 150 000 followers, had defrauded them of hundreds of millions of baht.

He claimed that the renowned matchmaker caters to Thai women seeking farang companions— a term used to describe people who appear to be from Europe. The quality of the men’s profiles is based on the offer price that the match determines.

For farang designers and office employees, the most basic package costs 20, 000 rmb; for developers and businessmen, it costs 30, 000; it cost doctors, pharmacists, and dairy land owners and garden owners 100 000 Baht.

The matchmaker, according to Pol Col Kissana, offers personal coaching on how to find a farang husband for 5, 000 baht and claims to make profiles on online dating sites for her clients for 7, 000 baht.

Victims claimed that the match did not introduce them to someone, and the farang men she had sent them pictures of were actually high-profile businessmen, athletes, or celebrities.

According to Pol Col Kissana, there were 2, 621 cases of matching schemes between March 2022 and September 17 of this year, making this type of relationship con the 12th most reported murder with an 881 million baht total loss.

The analysis looked into the case of seven adult sufferers who had paid more than 100,000 baht for the matchmaking service in the hopes that it would turn up high-profile men for them.

The patients went to renowned attorney Decha Kittivittayanan to report their scams to the law with the intention of taking the case to court after realizing they had been duped.

One of the sufferers revealed that she is a solitary mother looking to travel abroad with her child by finding he in the West. She made the decision to pay for the service after seeing how effective the matchmaker’s advertisement was.

Over ten survivors of the fraud, according to Mr. Decha, have contacted him.

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Women warned of bogus provider of attractive foreign lovers

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20 September 2023 at 13:29 PUBLISHED

Women warned of bogus provider of attractive foreign lovers
Pol Col. Kissana Phathanacharoen, a CCIB official.

Women have been forewarned by the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau of a dishonest online matchmaking service that scams them out of finding them beautiful foreign lovers.

According to CCIB spokesman Pol Col Kissana Phathanacharoen & nbsp, many women complained on Wednesday about being duped by the online matchmaker” Mae Sue Online ,” which had about 150,000 Facebook followers.

The page charged a variety of fees to find them prospective unusual lovers.

According to Pol Col Kissana, the fees ranged from 20, 000 baht for a foreign national who works as an expert or civil servant to 30, 000 Bahr for real estate developers, 50, 000 BH for doctors or pharmacists, and 100,000 BHT for orchard owners.

Additionally, the site administrator offered to create profiles for clients at a cost of 7, 000 baht each and to train them in andnbsp, finding them overseas lovers for 5,000.

Consumers were given pictures of potential matches that eventually turned out to be famous actors, athletes, or businessmen. According to Pol Col Kissana, that is when the accusers eventually realized they had been duped.

About 2,600 people were fraud victims between March 1 and September 17, and they made up 0.80 % of all patients who reported the scam electronically and claimed to have lost a total of 881 million baht, according to the spokesman.

According to him, people fraud carries a maximum prison sentence of five years and / or good of 100,000 ringgit.

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Breaking Europe’s hold on soccer

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1.5 billion persons tuned in to see the closing of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, which brought together countries from all over the world. However, despite the fact that soccer is a source of national pride, love, and individual and societal identity worldwide, its recognized governing body is located in Europe.

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association( FIFA ), which was established in Paris in 1904 and is now based in Switzerland, is in charge of overseeing the development of international soccer, from rule changes to hosting rights for significant tournaments.

Along with the Premier League of England( EPL ), the Bundesliga of Germany, LaLiga of Spain, Serie A of Italy, and Ligue 1 of France, the Union of European Football Associations( UEFA ) contribute significantly to international soccer and bring in a sizable amount of money for FIFA. Major talent is drawn to European clubs and national teams, which can then use” sports diplomacy” to project their economic, political, and cultural pursuits abroad and have an impact on FIFA.

This supremacy has long drawn critique. In order to resist their underrepresentation at the World Cup, American teams organized boycotts in 1966. Yet UEFA and Sepp Blatter, who succeeded Joo Havelange as president of FIFA from 1974 to 1998, began to criticize FIFA’s Eurocentric effect in 2015.

This type of criticism has just become even more obvious. FIFA ordered German teams to drop plans to use pro-LGBT wristbands during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, while UEFA-affiliated teams and FIFA fought over Qatar’s individual rights record prior to the competition. However, significant improvements in Saudi Arabia and the United States have challenged Europe’s long-standing dominance throughout 2023.

Arabian motives

Saudi Arabia wants to expand its business and draw in foreign investment, according to its 2016 Vision 2030. Soccer is the basis of Riyadh’s efforts to present and market the nation, even though it includes hosting and sponsoring racing, golf, fighting, and other athletics tournaments.

Western accusations of” sportswashing ,” in which sports are used to boost a nation’s reputation and deflect attention away from negative actions, have been made in response to this charm offensive.

Saudi Arabia, like other Gulf nations, has recently acquired significant European clubs. Newcastle United was purchased by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in 2021, and Sheffield United, which the Saudis also purchased in 2013, will play in the EPL once more during the 2023 – 2024 season.

While competitions like the Supercoppa Italiana and Spanish Super Cup are being held more frequently in Saudi Arabia, the Saudis apparently made a multimillion dollar pay to acquire the EPL’s Chelsea.

Nevertheless, Riyadh’s main sporting goal is to improve the Saudi Professional League( SPL ) reputation. The Saudis have made significant investments in the SPL, turning it into one of the world’s most well-known teams, with support from the oil-fueled Public Investment Fund.

Findings from this investment have already been seen: SPL staff Al-Hilal finished second in the 2022 FIFA Club World Cup, falling to Real Madrid of Spain.

This year, a number of high-profile SPL offers snatched up best talent from all over the world and Europe. Royal clubs snatched up players like Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, Édouard Mendy of Senegal, Jordan Henderson of England, Gabri Veiga of Spain, and Portuguese singer Neymar without being constrained by UEFA’s spending restrictions.

While some are nearing the end of their profession, others are in their equations or are just getting started, and SPL clubs have also been successful in luring renowned coaches.

Concerns about Saudi Arabia’s influence in international football have grown, and human rights concerns are frequently brought up. Due to these issues, Saudi Arabia was forbidden from sponsoring the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand this time.

The people’s FIFA Club World Cup will be held in December, and Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Greece will look into co-hosting the 2030 FIFA World Championship with an offer to finance their fresh stadiums if three-quarters of the games are played there.

US initiatives

US entities have also made significant inroads amid rising Royal attempts to sway FIFA and the international football scene. Eight out of the 20 groups in the EPL are now entirely or partially owned by the US.

However, the main US challenge to European soccer dominance, like Saudi Arabia, is the expansion of its domestic league, Major League Soccer( MLS ). The group has been expanding steadily for decades with the goal of capturing the possible sizable domestic US market.

The MLS’s annual winter began in 1996 following the success of the 1994 FIFA World Cup, which was held in the US.

With the addition of English superstar David Beckham to the LA Galaxy in 2007, MLS experienced a considerable increase. The agreement included a provision allowing Beckham to buy the rights to an enlargement team after his five-year contract expired as well as the designated gamer rule, which allowed teams to reach the salary cap for some players.

Since therefore, MLS has grown from 13 to 29 groups, and Beckham then co-owns Inter Miami, which acquired Lionel Messi of Argentina from European league Paris Saint-Germain in the middle of 2023. Messi’s agreement includes a stake in Inter Miami, demonstrating how MLS keeps luring superstars with its ownership of the group.

MLS has been experiencing what is known as the” Messi effect” ever since Messi’s signing. Inter Miami has amassed 14 million Instagram followers, sold record-breaking jerseys, and sold hundreds of millions of tickets.

As of September 7, Apple’s MLS game streaming service had nearly 300,000 subscribers. Leonardo DiCaprio, LeBron James, and Prince Harry were among the current Miami game stars. Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, two former Messi colleagues from Barcelona, have also recently signed on with Miami.

The major growth of the Hispanic population since MLS’s inception in 1996, which capitalized on Italian Americas’ passion for the sport, as well as the recent success of US national womens team, have also contributed to the expansion of this sport. This time saw the start of a brand-new, expanded Leagues Cup between MLS and Mexico’s Liga MX, with Inter Miami coming out on top.

In collaboration with the Confederation of North, Central, and Caribbean Association Football ( CONCACAF ) and the South American Football Association( COMEBOL ), the US will host the Copa América in 2024. The 2026 Men’s World Cup will also be held in the US, Mexico, and Canada.

In an effort to compete with German youth development leagues( the Saudis launched their personal this year ), the MLS launched sports Next in 2020 as young Americans’ interest in the sport has grown. Children soccer players are currently most prevalent in the US, and MLS talent is being sought out more and more by Western leagues.

FIFA is normally eager to take advantage of MLS’s potential for expansion. In terms of brand sponsorship and the number of people attending World Cups, the US is currently one of FIFA’s most significant revenue sources for the competition.

FIFA might become attempting to placate Washington as well. The US Justice Department accused FIFA of accepting money from Qatar and Russia to secure their World Cup hosting requests in 2020. In 2015, American authorities launched a number of legal actions and investigations into bribery in FIFA.

Steep conflict

However, in terms of popularity, the SPL and MLS are second only to the big European teams. Sports venues in Saudi Arabia and the United States are typically much smaller than those in Europe, and their teams lack the prestige of well-known European teams.

Even though some clubs have experienced financial success, more than half of MLS teams also lose money, and incomes are also lower than in Europe. The EPL and Mexico’s Liga MX both have higher popularity in the US than MLS, and US activities culture also favors other activities.

Past difficulties have also been defeated by UEFA’s ascendancy over FIFA. The Intercontinental Cup, which featured the best teams from Europe and South America and eventually evolved into the FIFA Club World Cup ), overshadowed the US’s failure to establish the International Soccer League in 1960. More just, the Chinese Super League experienced difficulties as a result of significant purchases that started in 2017.

However, UEFA’s past animosity has even recently come to light. Two attempts to create a separate” Super League” outside of FIFA and UEFA control — one in 1998 and one in 2021 — have been sparked by frustration. Over the past few years, the flow of funds from Russia, Gulf States, and the US into Western leagues has been a key factor in inciting big teams’ dissatisfaction with UEFA and its Financial Fair Play rules.

Aleksander Eiferin, the head of UEFA, just dismissed worries about the SPL’s extravagant wasting and has largely avoided discussing the MLS. However, the classic international soccer dominance of Europe has been undermined by these concurrent challenges.

Additionally, there are rumors that US investment firm Clearlake Capital and Chelsea proprietors Todd Boehly are selling Chelsea players to the SPL at exorbitant prices, demonstrating how powerful Royal and US figures have grown even in the sports world of Europe.

By enabling a more equitable distribution of resources, the SPL and MLS perhaps give FIFA new career. Concerns that decentralizing international soccer could only shift the source of financial power from Europe to fresh players, probably introducing a unique set of challenges, are raised by the major influence of Saudi and American money in improving their profiles.

FIFA has carefully navigate this change in order to achieve true equity without introducing new imbalances.

This content was created by Globetrotter, who also gave it to Asia Times.

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MOM officer gets jail for illegally obtaining co-workers’ salary details through ex-colleague from DBS

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SINGAPORE: On Thursday, September 14, a Ministry of Manpower ( MOM) officer was imprisoned for five weeks for asking an ex-colleague from DBS Bank to access the salary information of MOM colleagues.

Singaporean Dinath Silvamany Muthaliyar requested admittance to the customer information in a DBS collection from his former classmate Liong Yan Sin. & nbsp,

Due to his work as a collections agent, where he responded to inquiries from bank customers and spoke with them about past payments and settlement plans, Liong had access to the information. Liong was prohibited from disclosing or accessing knowledge outside the scope of his responsibilities, though. & nbsp,

Before joining MOM, where he managed the charge management, Dinath worked as a collections official as well.

The 35-year-old admitted guilt to four works under the Computer Misuse Act for aiding Liong in conducting the unauthorized searches and to giving info that he was not authorized to reveal on the Banking Act. For his punishment, 14 additional expenses of a comparable nature were taken into consideration. & nbsp,

Liong had previously admitted guilt to comparable claims and received a 16-week prison term. Another man, Ang Kok How, received a two-week prison term for asking Liong to get an acquaintance’s target improperly. & nbsp,

The jury learned that Liong and Dinath had both been aware of the regulations that forbade collections officers from giving consumer information to third parties in an unauthorized manner and that they were not permitted to access customer data outside of their line of work.

But starting in June 2018, Dinath asked Liong to assist him in learning the wage information of MOM coworkers so he could contrast it with his own. & nbsp,

According to the trial, the accused wanted to learn about his coworkers’ salaries in order to determine his position in relation to them and the discrepancy between them. & nbsp,

Between then and November 2018, Liong consented and went to the DBS collection to conduct searches.

He therefore sent Dinath the data via WhatsApp. At least seven coworkers were impacted across all the expenses. & nbsp,

Dinath was sentenced to six to seven months in prison by the trial, who claimed that he was less guilty than Liong because the latter had been trusted at the time of his offense. & nbsp,

S S Dhillon, Dinath’s attorney, claimed that his client had requested that Liong test the wages of his coworkers” against his better judgment” and” purely out of curiosity.” & nbsp,

There were” no intended benefits ,” according to Mr. Dhillon, and Dinath did not give the information to outside parties. & nbsp,

He was informed that this was an offense when he was called up for studies, which surprised him. He was unaware that simply requesting for information would amount to him serving a statement, according to Mr. Dhillon. & nbsp,

At this point, Dinath had formerly worked for DBS and should have been aware of the repercussions, according to Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan. & nbsp,

Mr. Dhillon retorted that even when Dinath was employed by DBS, he was unaware that merely requesting information had get him in jail. & nbsp,

Dinath’s spotless history, admission of guilt, and cooperation with the government were all cited by the attorney as mitigating factors. & nbsp,

He described Dinath’s potential job loss as a” back punishment for his stupid, foolish mistakes.” & nbsp,

” Sir, you can see his conduct; he speaks for himself.” Please provide him this one chance in life because he is completely ashamed and bad.

Mr. Dhillon added that Dinath was” shell-shocked” by the proceedings in his moderation appeal. & nbsp,

Dinath will no longer try to be anything less than a law-abiding citizen because he is so terrified and concerned about it. This worry has made him shiver, which in and of itself is a severe abuse for him.

CNA has contacted MOM to inquire as to whether Dinath is also employed by the company.

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