‘Scam kits’ for sale in underground markets

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‘DeFi savings’ swindle follows a familiar script but with some new twists

‘Scam kits’ for sale in underground markets
DeFi (decentralised finance) savings scam kits include a web page that can connect to a victim’s crypto wallets through the Ethereum blockchain. (Photo: Reuters)

Cybercriminals are selling the latest evolution of online scam schemes in ready-to-go kits on the dark web, lowering the barrier to entry for scammers around the world, according to a report published on Friday by the cybersecurity firm Sophos.

In traditional “pig-butchering” scams, which originated in China and blew up during the pandemic, criminals pretend to cultivate a romantic or personal relationship with victims through dating apps or social media. After gaining their trust over weeks of virtual conversations, the fraudsters manipulate them into investing in phony cryptocurrency investments.

Once the criminals squeeze as much digital currency as they can out of the victims, they take off with the funds, sometimes robbing innocent people of their life savings.

The name “pig butchering” refers to the process of fattening up victims with flattery and companionship before leading them to a potential financial slaughter.

“It gets people where they’re the most vulnerable because they’re trying to reach out to, to have contact with another human being,” said Sean Gallagher, principal researcher at Sophos’ threat research unit Sophos X-Ops.

Now, a type of swindle is being bundled and distributed for sale. Known as “DeFi savings”, it still depends on the fraudsters establishing a personal connection with the victims. In this instance, the financial fraud relies on well-known cryptocurrency apps since they provoke less scepticism among victims, Gallagher said.

The victims are persuaded to invest in a “DeFi savings opportunity”, by downloading a legitimate crypto wallet application and entering a malicious web address provided by the scammer.

Once users open the web page, it allows the fraudsters to access and steal funds from the victim’s wallet, according to Sophos.

DeFi (decentralised finance) savings scam kits include a web page that can connect to a victim’s crypto wallets through the Ethereum blockchain. Many of these web pages also include an installed chat feature, which the criminals can use to act as “technical support” for their victim, according to the report.

The commodification of these scam kits has allowed a wider array of fraudsters to get in on the action, the researchers said. In the past, swindlers could often be traced to Chinese-language crime rings in Southeast Asia. Now, they have started to emerge from web addresses in Thailand and West Africa, according to Sophos.

“It’s very simple for somebody to move over from doing an Instagram scam or some of the other types of social engineering scams that we’ve seen over the past decade, to convert into this type of operation,” Gallagher said.

With dozens of new kits popping up every day, DeFi scams are the fastest growing space in pig-butchering, Gallagher said. The DeFi savings scheme avoids some of the technical hurdles of more traditional techniques, such as installing a customised mobile app or wiring a deposit to the scammers, according to the report.

One DeFi ring studied by Gallagher brought in $3 million over a three-month period — an amount that took almost twice as long to steal by criminals who used more traditional techniques.

The job isn’t done once the scammers empty their victims’ wallet. Instead, the criminals will tell them that they can recover the funds by adding more money, according to Gallagher.

When a victim finally breaks contact, the criminals persistently ping them on other platforms, like Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram. Some do so by utilising generative AI to create more fluent and believable English messages, according to the report.

“They use ChatGPT to create a text message saying: ‘Why did you cut off contact with me? I miss you. I love you. Please come back’,” Gallagher said.

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Ditrolic Energy secures investment backing from BlackRock’s climate finance partnership

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Partnership expected to develop and build 1GW+ scalable solar portfolio
Intends to make Malaysia its investment hub for key energy transition projects around the Asia Pacific region

Ditrolic Energy Holdings Sdn. Bhd. (Ditrolic Energy) has entered into an agreement with global asset management company BlackRock’s Climate Finance Partnership (CFP), its flagship public-private finance…Continue Reading

Singapore visitor arrivals up 115% to 13.6 million in 2023

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2024 OUTLOOK

STB said it expects the tourism sector’s recovery to continue in 2024, driven by improved global flight connectivity and capacity as well as the implementation of the mutual 30-day visa-free travel between China and Singapore.

Singapore and China had agreed to a 30-day mutual visa-free entry for their citizens last week.

Under the agreement, Singaporeans and Chinese citizens holding ordinary passports can enter China or Singapore without a visa for no more than 30 days if they are travelling for business, sightseeing, visiting friends and family, or other private affairs. 

The arrangement will formally start on Feb 9, the eve of Chinese New Year.

“In 2024, international flight capacity is expected to continue to increase, with capacity at or approaching pre-pandemic levels for the majority of our key source markets,” STB said.

International visitor arrivals are expected to reach around 15 to 16 million in 2024, bringing in approximately S$26.0 billion to S$27.5 billion in tourism receipts.

Geopolitical uncertainty, the state of the global economy and other factors such as the continued restoration of flight connectivity will have bearing on the pace of travel recovery, STB added.

“To sustain our growth in 2024 and beyond, STB will focus on achieving quality tourism, cultivating strategic partnerships, investing in new and refreshed products and experiences, and supporting stakeholders in building capabilities,” said STB chief executive Melissa Ow.

KEY INDUSTRY PERFORMANCES

In the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) sector, STB said it secured several significant business events that took place in Singapore for the first time last year.

These include the 25th World Congress of Dermatology 2023, Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) Global Conference 2023, and the International Trademark Association (INTA) 2023 Annual Meeting Live+.

For leisure events, STB in 2023 hosted the debut of ART SG, Southeast Asia’s largest art fair, in conjunction with the Singapore Art Week.

For hotels, the average room rate and revenue per available room exceeded 2019 levels. Average room rate reached S$282, which is about 128 per cent of the rate in 2019, while revenue per available room reached S$226, which is about 118 per cent of the figure in 2019.

Average Occupancy Rate was 80.1 per cent in 2023, compared to 86.9 per cent in the same period in 2019.

The hotel industry’s performance in 2023 was driven by stronger demand for leisure and business travel, STB said.

For cruises, Singapore reached a record 2 million passenger throughput received from more than 340 ship calls since the opening of the Marina Bay Cruise Centre Singapore.

STB had also announced in 2023 its partnership with Disney Cruise Line to make Singapore the exclusive home port for its new Disney Cruise Line vessel for at least five years from 2025.

STB also introduced new attractions and enhanced experiences in 2023 including Go-Kart at Sentosa, Bird Paradise, and the world’s first surf-snow-skate attraction TRIFECTA.

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Shopee sues ex-senior employee to stop him from working for ‘competitor’ ByteDance, citing non-compete clause

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SINGAPORE: A senior employee who worked at Shopee for eight years, heading regional operations, left and joined ByteDance, which owns TikTok and its related e-commerce platform.

When Shopee Singapore learnt of Mr Lim Teck Yong’s new job, it sent a letter to Mr Lim through its lawyers, alleging that he had flagrantly breached a non-competition clause.

Under the agreements Mr Lim had signed with Shopee when he was working with the e-commerce giant, he was not to pursue employment with any competitor within 12 months of leaving Shopee.

When Mr Lim refused Shopee’s demands to cease his new employment with ByteDance and provide written undertakings that he would comply with the non-competition restriction and related obligations, Shopee took him to court.

Among its orders sought from the court were: Interim injunctions to restrain Mr Lim from accepting employment with Bytedance, interim injunctions to restrain Mr Lim from soliciting Shopee’s clients and employees, or a springboard injunction to restrain Mr Lim from accepting employment with any of Shopee’s competitors.

In a judgment released on Wednesday (Jan 31), Justice Kwek Mean Luck dismissed Shopee’s requests for injunctions and said Shopee has raised no “serious question” to be tried.

Even if it had, Justice Kwek said he would not have granted the requested injunctions. 

EMPLOYMENT WITH SHOPEE

Mr Lim joined Shopee Singapore in August 2015 as its head of regional operations, HQ. Shopee operates in markets including Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Brazil.

When he first joined, he signed a Restrictive Covenants Agreement (RCA) with a non-solicitation and non-competition clause, as well as an Employee Confidentiality Agreement (ECA).

Mr Lim later held other roles including: Head of regional people team, Shopee; senior director of regional operations, HQ; and executive director of regional operations, HQ.

His last role before he left Shopee was as executive director, head of operations for Shopee Brazil.

He was in this role from January 2021 until mid-May 2023, when he resigned. He served his notice period of two months and went on unpaid leave of absence from July 2023 to August 2023, with his last day at Shopee on Aug 31, 2023. 

Mr Lim joined ByteDance on Sep 11, 2023 as “leader for TikTok shop governance and experience, middle platform”. ByteDance owns social media platform TikTok, which launched an e-commerce platform under the label TikTok Shop.

The scope of Mr Lim’s responsibilities with Shopee and the extent of the similarities between his roles with Shopee and ByteDance are disputed by Mr Lim and Shopee.

ARGUMENTS BY BOTH SIDES

Shopee’s lawyers from JWS Asia Law Corporation, Mr Clarence Ding Si-Liang, Ms Ariane Kea Tong and Ms Sarah Teo, argued that Mr Lim’s new role was “substantially similar” to the roles he had in Shopee.

These include managing user experience, designing of policies for seller and listing management and managing after-sale services such as returns and refunds.

Mr Lim argued that his new role was in a team that had a primarily supporting role, including assisting with data analysis and root cause analysis to enhance operational metrics.

On top of this, TikTok Shop operates in the United States, United Kingdom and parts of Southeast Asia, while his last role with Shopee was in Brazil, where TikTok Shop does not currently operate.

TikTok Shop therefore cannot be construed as a competitor of Shopee in Brazil, Mr Lim argued.

According to his reading of the RCA Mr Lim signed, the judge said the period for consideration was the 12 months before Mr Lim left Shopee.

During this period, Mr Lim held only the position of executive director, head of operations for Shopee Brazil.

‌Shopee initially said Mr Lim also had concurrent duties or managerial responsibilities as executive director of regional operations, but later accepted there was nothing in its own affidavits testifying to this.

Counsel for Shopee said e-commerce is a highly specialised industry, and that Mr Lim had a “very senior” position in Shopee, receiving “extensive training” during his long tenure.

While Shopee was unable to point to any specific confidential information Mr Lim had access to, its lawyers said Shopee’s concern “was more with the general know-how” that Mr Lim was exposed to, rather than any specific set of information.

Shopee said Mr Lim acquired certain confidential information by taking part in “regularly held regional operations meetings” where Shopee’s strategies and priorities for all markets would be shared and discussed.

However, Justice Kwek said this argument would mean that Mr Lim would have to be excluded from being employed in all the markets where Shopee was operating, even though Mr Lim had not worked there, had no responsibilities for and had no specific information about in the 12 months before his employment with Shopee ended.

“In effect, (Mr) Lim would simply be restrained from working for any competitor of Shopee who had been in Shopee’s markets,” said Justice Kwek. 

“I have serious doubts that it could be said that there is a serious question if this would be regarded as reasonable as between the parties or reasonable in the interest of the public.”

On non-solicitation of Shopee’s customers, the e-commerce giant did not have any specific evidence that Mr Lim had breached those restrictions.

Instead, Shopee argued that there was a risk of a breach, pointing to how Mr Lim refused to provide undertakings that he would not breach them.

Justice Kwek disagreed. He said Mr Lim had already provided these undertakings when he first signed the RCA when taking on his job with Shopee in 2015.

Shopee’s own lawyers acknowledged that the new undertakings Shopee requested in 2022 did not add anything legally, as Mr Lim had already committed to those obligations when he signed the RCA and ECA.

Mr Lim was defended by lawyers Mr Tham Wei Chern and Ms Charis Wang from Fullerton Law Chambers.

He said he did not want to provide the further undertakings for the non-compete restriction for reasons including that the “trade restraint clause is unreasonable in scope and duration and amounts to an unlawful restraint of trade”.

Justice Kwek said it could hardly be said in the circumstances that Mr Lim was unreasonable in refusing to provide the further undertakings.

Mr Lim has also stated in a sworn statement before the court that he has not breached and will not breach his confidentiality obligations to Shopee.

JUDGE’S DECISION

Explaining why he was dismissing Shopee’s case, Justice Kwek said there were serious doubts about whether the non-competition restriction was valid “because of the lack of a legitimate proprietary interest” and “the reasonableness of the geographical restraint” Shopee was seeking.

Mr Lim did not have any duties or any specific information relating to the markets in those areas, the judge said.

Shopee has also failed to show how there are serious questions to be tried about whether the restriction is valid or breached.

For the non-solicitation restrictions, Shopee had not shown that Mr Lim was about to breach those restrictions.

For the springboard injunction it sought, it similarly did not show there was risk of misuse of the information.

Justice Kwek found that “Shopee has not shown that it has any prospects of success which, in substance and reality, exist”.

“Its prospects are so small that they lack substance and reality,” he said.

The judge added that even if Shopee had raised serious questions that had to be tried, he would not have granted the interim injunction it sought, barring Mr Lim from working at ByteDance.

This was on the “balance of convenience”, that a court should take whichever course appears to carry the lower risk of injustice if that course should ultimately turn out to be wrong.

“In this case, as set out above, Shopee’s case is very weak. The status quo is that (Mr) Lim has already started work for ByteDance. This would be disturbed if the interim injunction is granted,” said Justice Kwek.

“Given the serious doubts over the possibility of Shopee’s eventual success, in my judgment, it would be in the interests of justice not to disturb that status quo.”

He asked both sides to file submissions on costs.

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Commentary: Beijing hedges its bets in Myanmar

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HEDGING IN AN UNCERTAIN GEOPOLITICAL CLIMATE

Ultimately Beijing’s strategy is to maximise its interests in Myanmar, where the tussle for power has intensified and the future is extremely uncertain. With the State Administration Council, opposing National Unity Government, the People’s Defence Forces as well as the myriad of ethnic armed organisations all vying for power, Beijing must hedge its bets and work with whoever serves its interests best.

When scholars discuss hedging as a foreign policy practice, it is often described as the best choice in uncertain geopolitical contexts. Much has been said about how countries in Southeast Asia have practiced hedging amid US-China competition as an “active insurance-seeking behaviour aimed at mitigating risks and cultivating fall-back options under uncertainty”.

Though few have applied this logic to relations between foreign governments and domestic actors, the hedging logic is applicable in the Myanmar context, where there are competing regimes and a plethora of armed resistance groups with their own agency and special interests. In this uncertain environment, Beijing, which has a huge economic and strategic stake in Myanmar, will naturally want to engage with as many actors as possible.

This has encompassed groups at the forefront of the opposition to the junta. Since late October 2023, the Three Brotherhood Alliance – comprising the Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army – has waged a well-coordinated military offense against junta strongholds in the northern Shan State. This alliance of ethnic armed organisations  has since made significant advances against the State Administration Council and its affiliated Border Guard Forces.

Since the launch of Operation 1027, the alliance has captured at least 12 towns and overrun more than 400 junta bases and outposts in Rakhine, Chin and northern Shan States. Along the Myanmar-China frontier, the alliance has effectively taken over several prominent crossings through which a substantial amount of cross-border trade takes place.

The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army’s primary goal is to retake the Kokang region, previously the Special Region One of the Shan State, from which it was driven out by the Myanmar military in a major offensive in 2009. Yet in its official statement, it says the goal of its operations is to help China crack down on online scam syndicates based in Kokang, where the junta-approved leader Bai Suocheng was labelled the main culprit.

On Dec 11 last year, China’s Ministry of Public Security issued an arrest warrant for Bai. Since he is backed by the Myanmar military, Beijing has been dissatisfied by the lack of action by the State Administration Council. Instead, Beijing decided to rely on the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army to achieve its goal.

The Chinese government has also tried to broker a ceasefire agreement between the State Administration Council and the Three Brotherhood Alliance in Kunming. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army ultimately captured Laukkai, the capital of Kokang, and it is believed that Beijing is, for now, satisfied with the success of the ethnic armed organisations and would like to see political stability return to the borderland region.

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US calls Chinese EVs a posssible security threat – Asia Times

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The Biden administration has warned that Chinese electric vehicles can pose a national security threat to the United States as they can collect huge amounts of personal information and may send it overseas. 

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said during an Atlantic Council fireside chat on Tuesday that the US should think deeply about whether it wants all the data collected by electric and autonomous vehicles to be sent to China. She said the information could be about the driver, the location of the vehicle and the surroundings of the vehicle. 

Raimondo’s comments came after Bloomberg reported last week that the White House is preparing an executive order to prevent foreign adversaries from accessing “highly sensitive” individual data. 

A Commerce Department official said the commerce chief’s comments were not unrelated to the executive order. The official said Raimondo is increasingly focused on new technology areas from a national security perspective. 

Chinese columnist Ruan Jiaqi on Wednesday criticized Raimondo, accusing her of maliciously defaming China’s EV makers. Ruan said EVs made by Chinese firms such as BYD have already received strong market responses in Europe and Latin America but not actually entered the US market due to an additional 25% tariff imposed by the Trump administration on Chinese autos in 2019.

Citing a previous comment from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Ruan said the United States’ protectionism may have violated the World Trade Organization’s most-favored-nation principle and national treatment principle. She said the US should abide by WTO rules, uphold the trade order to ensure fair competition and provide a fair, just and nondiscriminatory business environment for foreign companies. 

In 2022, the US Federal Communications Commission cited national security reasons for banning the sale of communications equipment made by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE and restricted the use of some China-made video surveillance systems in US critical infrastructure. Over the past few years, the US has also successfully persuaded its European allies not to use Huawei’s 5G equipment. 

US measures

Tesla’s Chief Executive Elon Musk said last week that Chinese electric car makers will find significant success outside of China and will be able to demolish most global competitors other than Tesla if there are not any trade barriers established.

In recent months, the Biden administration has taken some measures to curb China’s EV ambitions in the US.

On December 4 last year, the US Treasury Department published a set of guidelines for federal clean vehicle tax credits established by the Inflation Reduction Act, US President Joe Biden’s signature climate law.

According to the guidelines, starting in 2024, vehicles containing battery components manufactured or assembled by a “foreign entity of concern” – that is, in China, Russia, Iran or North Korea – will be ineligible for the clean vehicle tax credit. 

Starting in 2025, vehicles whose batteries contain certain “critical minerals” extracted or processed in any of those four countries will also be ineligible for the credit.

On December 22, US lawmakers passed the National Defense Authorization Act to prevent the Defense Department from buying batteries produced by Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL), Envision Energy Ltd., EVE Energy Co, Gotion High Tech Co and Hithium Energy Storage Technology Co from October 2027. But the measure won’t extend to commercial purchases by companies such as Ford.

In February 2023, Ford and CATL announced that they would join hands to produce lithium-iron-phosphate batteries for EVs made in Michigan. However, Ford said last September that it has stopped work on construction on the US$3.5 billion battery-making project due to a number of unspecified considerations. 

On Tuesday, Republican representatives Mike Gallagher, chair of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, called on the federal government to investigate alleged ties between automaker Ford and four unnamed Chinese business partners related to the Ford-CATL battery project.

China’s expansion

Chinese state media and commentators said it won’t be easy for the US to suppress China’s EV sector this time as Chinese EV and battery makers have been expanding quickly in Europe and other regions. 

The state-owned People’s Daily said in a report on Wednesday that Chinese and European EV sectors are highly complementary with each other as they are good in different areas. 

It said China’s CATL has already started producing EV batteries in Thuringia, Germany in early 2023 and selling them to BMW, Bosch and Mercedes-Benz Group. It said China’s EV makers have successfully entered the markets in Southeast Asia, Middle East and Africa. 

According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), the number of new energy vehicles (NEVs) produced in China rose 35.8% to 9.59 million units last year from 2022 while those sold in the country increased 37.9% to 9.5 million units. 

The National Passenger Car Information Exchange Association said China exported 1.2 million units of NEVs, 38% of which were shipped to Europe last year. It said Belgium, the United Kingdom, Slovenia and France were among the top destinations of Chinese NEVs.

Read: Ford-CATL deal exposes trade and tech war limits

Read: Trade war, tech war, chip war…EV war?

Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3

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AI in Southeast Asia: Are jobs being replaced? Not quite yet, but an uncertain future beckons

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JOBS COULD BE AT RISK BY 2040: EXPERT 

As it stands, AI does not pose an imminent threat to workers’ livelihoods – at least in Southeast Asia’s healthcare and BPO industries.

But this could change by 2040, one expert warns.

Dr Lundberg noted that the world is currently at the first stage of AI – known as weak AI – where humans have more logic than AI. At this stage, AI is able to enhance the work of human workers and acts as an aid, she said. 

However, at the second stage – known as strong AI – where AI has a human level of cognition, jobs will be at risk. 

“There is already strong prediction that the second stage will arrive in two decades,” said Dr Lundberg.

As AI rapidly evolves, the race for regulation is on, with action being taken at global and national levels to avert the risks while hopefully reaping the rewards.

When asked if the development of AI should be regulated in favour of the livelihoods of human workers, Dr Lundberg noted that while this is an ideal scenario, the rapid growth of AI has outpaced the setting of rules.

“Regulation has to go hand in hand with technological progress but the private sector, where technological progress occurs, will not wait.

“What we could do is to accelerate the government side (so that it catches up with the private sector). We cannot slow down the private sector; it’s opposite from development,” said Dr Lundberg.

To survive in the strong AI phase, workers should also constantly upskill, reskill, and gain basic digital literacy.

For those already proficient with basic technology, they need to focus on upskilling and reskilling, said Dr Lundberg, noting that there are already various government-led initiatives in the region. 

Singapore launched an updated version of its national AI strategy last month. Among its plans – a tripling of its AI talent pool, and significant investments in adult education and training to reskill and upskill workers.

In Thailand, the government has introduced a tax subsidy programme for companies that offer upskilling and reskilling courses. 

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