FightCybercrime.org | The casual conversations from friendly new contacts online or the wrong-number texts aren’t casual at all. They’re calculated to manipulate.

ESPN | Online predators zeroed in on a Michigan teen as a source of easy money through a form of internet blackmail called “sextortion.” Hours later, the young man took his own life.

Whale Hunting | Trafficked workers in Southeast-Asian compounds run crypto scams to siphon billions. Operation Shamrock is prying open the ‘pig-butchering’ machine — and fighting to free victims.

NBC6 South Florida | The scam begins when someone fraudulently takes over your cell phone account. And it takes scammers only minutes to drain your bank accounts.

The Wall Street Journal | Investment scams are global operations. Americans want banks to do more to prevent them. Pressure is spreading to telecoms and social media, where scammers find their marks.

ABC News | Cambodia has intensified its crackdown on online scam centers, arresting nearly 5,000 suspects so far this year.

WCSC Live 5 News | Crypto ATM kiosks allow people to put cash into the machine and receive some kind of cryptocurrency. But they’re used for fraud 99.5% of the time.

A member of the Crypto Coalition, Brooklyn Park Sgt. Tuzinski found scripts that scammers use to trick victims. He shared them with NBC KARE 11 News to highlight red flags.

The Hollywood Reporter | Victims think they’re talking to Keanu Reeves. Or Kevin Costner. Then come pleas for cash. The AI-fueled con that fleeces fans and has Hollywood fighting back.

Reuters | Lured to Cambodia and forced to defraud strangers online, a Thai teenager said he barely survived after jumping from an eighth-floor window to escape a prison-like compound.

Amnesty International | The Cambodian government is ignoring abuses carried out by criminal gangs in more than 50 scam compounds across the country.

ProPublica | Asian crime syndicates’ online scams cheat victims around the world out of more than $44 billion a year. U.S. banks have been unable to stop them.

Wired | Last month, Telegram banned black markets that sold tens of billions of dollars in crypto-scam-related services. Now, as those markets rebrand and bounce back, it’s done nothing to stop them.

FrankonFraud | Racks hold thousands of smartphones automated to imitate humans: liking posts, following accounts, watching video — seeding misinformation and scaling scams.

The Times | Trafficked by a Chinese crime gang, Mustapha Momoh was held in southeast Asia — one of 375,000 similar people forced to con westerners out of their life savings.

Forbes | What to watch out for to avoid being lured into scams. The key: Don’t respond or send money to random people who contact you online, no matter how good their story.

American Banker | Unlike fraud schemes where criminals gain unauthorized access to funds, scams often involve victims being manipulated into willingly initiating transactions themselves.

BioCatch | AARP, Amazon, Google, and Walmart have launched the National Elder Fraud Coordination Center (NEFCC) nonprofit to help protect older adults.