newcastlejon - Slashdot User

Submission + - Thousands Detained at KK Park Scam Operation (theguardian.com)

Submitted by newcastlejon on Monday October 20, 2025 @10:55PM

newcastlejon writes: Military personnel in Myanmar have raided an online scam operation at the KK Park complex, which is near Myanmar's border with Thailand. Around two thousand people have been detained and dozens of Starlink terminals have been seized.

Operations at KK Park are known to exploit victims of human trafficking, thousands of which were liberated earlier this year during a joint operation between Myanmar and Thailand.

From The Guardian:

Myanmar is notorious for hosting scam operations responsible for defrauding people all over the world. These usually involve gaining victims’ confidence online with romantic ploys and bogus investment pitches.

The centres are infamous for recruiting workers from other countries under false pretences, promising them legitimate jobs and then holding them captive and forcing them to carry out criminal activities.

Maj Gen Zaw Min Tun, the spokesperson for the military government, on Monday night accused the top leaders of the Karen National Union, an armed ethnic organisation opposed to army rule, of being involved in the scam projects at KK Park.

The allegation was previously made based on claims that a company backed by the Karen group allowed the land to be leased. However, the group, which is part of the larger armed resistance movement in Myanmar’s civil war, deny any involvement in the scams.

Submission + - Craig Wright Handed Suspended Prison Sentence (theguardian.com)

Submitted by newcastlejon on Friday December 20, 2024 @03:09AM

newcastlejon writes: From The Guardian:
An Australian computer scientist who falsely claimed to be the creator of bitcoin has been given a one-year suspended prison sentence after the high court in London ruled he was in contempt because he would not stop suing people.

Mr Justice Mellor had already found that Craig Wright, 54, repeatedly lied about his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym used by the person or people who launched bitcoin – the cryptocurrency that was first mined in 2009 and recently soared in value to £79,000.

On Thursday Wright was sentenced for five counts of contempt of court. Sentencing him to 12 months in jail, suspended for two years and to pay £145,000 in costs within a fortnight, the court also struck out his enormous claim.

Wright appeared by video link from an undisclosed location in Asia, having refused to comply with an order to appear in person.

Submission + - UK Royal Mint to Extract Gold from e-Waste (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by newcastlejon on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @02:13PM

newcastlejon writes: The Royal Mint, which has produced coins since the 9th Century, has begun to recover gold from electronic waste as the use of cash has declined and fewer new coins are needed. In 2022 construction began on a new site in Llantrisant, Wales. This facility will now be used to initially produce gold for jewellery and later for commemorative coins.

The BBC writes:
At the Royal Mint plant, piles of circuit boards are being fed into the new facility.

First, they are heated to remove their various components. Then the array of detached coils, capacitors, pins and transistors are sieved, sorted, sliced and diced as they move along a conveyor belt. Anything with gold in it is set aside.

âoeWhat we're doing here is urban mining,â says head of sustainability Inga Doak. âoeWe're taking a waste product that's being produced by society and we're mining the gold from that waste product and starting to see the value in that finite resource.â

The gold-laden pieces go to an on-site chemical plant. Theyâ(TM)re tipped into a chemical solution which leaches the gold out into the liquid. This is then filtered, leaving a powder behind. It looks pretty nondescript but this is actually pure gold â" it just needs to be heated in a furnace to be transformed into a gleaming nugget.

âoeTraditional gold recovery processes are very energy intensive and use very toxic chemicals that can only be used once, or they go to high energy smelters and they're basically burnt,â says Leighton John, the Royal Mint's operations director. âoeThe groundbreaking thing for us is the fact that this chemistry is used at room temperature, at very low energy, itâ(TM)s recyclable and pulls gold really quickly.â

Submission + - Scam Call Centre Owner (bbc.co.uk) 1

Submitted by newcastlejon on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @05:27PM

newcastlejon writes: The BBC reports that the owner of call centre scam operation has been arrested:

A scam call centre that targeted thousands of British victims has been raided by the Indian police, following a BBC investigation. Panorama broadcast hacked footage from inside the call centre which showed how staff charged people hundreds of pounds to fix non-existent computer problems.

The owner of the call centre, Amit Chauhan, denied it was a scam but declined to answer detailed questions.

Mr Chauhan is now in custody after police raided the call centre. It was located in the Gurugram suburb of Delhi, and Mr Chauhan is due to appear in court on Thursday.

Reported elsewhere is an allegation that PayPal had not closed the alleged scammer's account eight months after a concerned user reported it.

(From the BBC article:)
Indian police are appealing for British residents who paid money to the call centre to contact them by email at Shocybergrg.pol-hry@gov.in.

Spying on the Scammers, Panorama was first broadcast on 2nd March 20 on BBC One at 8:30pm. It is now viewable on iPlayer.

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