How US tech is being used globally to scam Americans of billions
FILE-A person in a hood participates in an online scam. (Getty Image)
Technology from American organizations is being utilized to bolster a global expansion in the scam industry.
Watchdogs tell The Associated Press that these organizations have the technical ability to do more to protect against abuse but don’t have legal and business incentives to prevent these crimes, which the Federal Trade Commission projects cost Americans nearly $200 billion in losses in 2024.
American technology is present all along the digital supply chains that connect scammers with the victims, from AI models embedded into powerful new tools to maximize workflow and produce enhanced fakes, to satellite dishes that enable scammers to avoid internet crackdowns, to internet service providers that carry traffic to the phones and computers of millions of victims.
The AP reported that it didn’t find evidence to infer these companies were doing anything illegal themselves. But the abuse of their tools and tech infrastructure at scam compounds in Myanmar raises questions about how often the companies are enforcing their own terms of service, which prohibit illegal activity and outlaw fraud.
American technology used globally for scams
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American-made AI models — mainly ChatGPT and Gemini — have been used to build software permitting scammers to work across dozens of languages, surveil workers and target victims globally.
According to The Associated Press, a global internet infrastructure supports Myanmar’s scam compound, which depends on services from Cogent Communications, AT&T, DigitalOcean, Oracle, and others.
One in five signals from devices at four scam compounds linked to entities in Myanmar was carried by an Amercian-registered company based on analysis by the AP of over 200,000 device connections furnished by International Justice Mission, an anti-trafficking nonprofit.
Meanwhile, Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet company, is the number one internet service provider in Myanmar, including to scam centers.
And roughly 25 new scam compounds have been constructed inside Myanmar since an enforcement operation at the Thai border in 2025. Scammers from about 13 of these areas used Starlink IP addresses to get online between early March and the end of May this year.
In many instances, scammers in Myanmar have routed their internet connections through the U.S.-based cloud services to conceal where they were really located before connecting to major platforms, primarily Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Furthermore, U.S. legislators and government officials have requested that American tech companies cooperate to cut scammers off from U.S. infrastructure, but on a voluntary basis.
In November 2025, District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro created the Scam Center Strike Force to target scam compounds.
The Associated Press reported that in May, the Strike Force collaborated with Meta, SpaceX, Google among others to interrupt over 1.4 million social media and email accounts, malicious IP address traffic, seize satellite internet terminals and remove servers and infrastructure connected to Southeast Asian scam networks.
The Source: Information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, which conducted an investigation of the global scams and its impact on the U.S. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.