How Scammers Use Deepfakes, Fake Calls & OTP Fraud | Sunil Bajpai | FO543 Raj Shamani

So we've prepared this big port. To explain me how these cam happened. In all of these cases, the same elements would play out. What? That there is somebody with authority who tells you that there is a problem. And the best part is, this camera is a friend leapers. Otherwise, you would not fall for it, no? So every year, we lose 54,000 crore. Yes. Those cams, we will have many more. Because about 10% people only have a report. And this online scam industry. It is about 1.03 trillion dollars per annum. So this is about 0.9% of the world GDP. Explain me this industry first. Who starts this? What are the steps involved? First is procurement. This source information about you, your phone number. So there are on the dark where available. So that's a sourcing cost. Then manufacturing. There are toolkits available. Websites available. Voice cloning, tools available. Whatever you want to do. But manufacturing means what? It has to reach the population, also distribution. Distribution is SMS calls, social media websites. These are the distribution channels through which you reach the victim. How much can you buy an information for? Or like a number called? A rupee, two rupees per number. What weakness do they identify? So fear and greed is what they usually work on. So at one stage, you asked what could be done. First is, they alarm something, somebody initiated. You did not. Second is, they'll keep on saying it's urgent. Because it is when you are acting hastily, you can't look or think. You will make a mistake. Third is, if you are acting out of fear, there is a problem. Then is it reversible? That's what you should ask yourself. And that's what can help you. Maybe stop yourself. And the action is required is very simple. What they call? On and at. It's more than 77% people in India. Get more than three scam calls a day. Yes. So how do you know your pizza seller sell that information? Did that food delivery app sell you information? Did that credit card guy sell you information? Do you have no idea? So how do you hold anyone accountable? This episode, please follow us on Spotify. Last year, Indians lost more than 22,000 crore rupees to scammers. And the people falling for these scams are smart, successful doctors, engineer, retired officer, even lawyers and judges. Because in just 90 seconds, a scammer can put your brain in so much panic that you stop thinking straight. Our today's guest is Sunil Bhachpai, chief trust officer of Tanla platforms. He spent 30 years in government of India, most of it at try where he wrote the rules that became a global standard for stopping spam calls and messages. In this episode, we'll discuss why do victims keep paying more money even after the first payment feels like a mistake? What is digital arrest? And how does a fake officer, a fake warrant, and a fake quote hearing feel completely real? How is Tanla using AI to catch scams within seconds? And can India's new data protection law fix this at the root? Watch this episode till the end. And to know more about Tanla platforms, check the link in the description. [MUSIC PLAYING] Tell me, you are chief trust officer. Yes. A very simple question on this. How to build trust? How to build trust? What are the components of trust? There are many. And why-- first, let's start with the question, why trust? Why is trust required at all? Then how we can build trust? Trust is required for people to work together. If we did not want to work together, no trust was necessary. Fair enough. All colonies, even of animals, they trust each other. Human beings in primitive villages also, when the villages started to form, they trusted each other. Why did they trust each other? They trusted each other because if you broke the trust, there were consequences for you to bear. That was as simple as that. If you are 20 of us living in a community and one person tries to misbehave, breaks the trust. The 19 others will beat him up and throw him out. And he gets eaten up by the lions. So trust was automatic in such communities. When the community has become larger, trust became a problem. So city scale, what do you do? You don't know them, and people can create problems. So hundreds of years ago, you started writing letters of introduction. Raj is well known. He writes a letter of introduction. This guy is good. You can treat him. He's a friend of mine. And I take that. Somebody who knows you will trust. So the trust started transferring. Then came institutions. They built trust. Banks started issuing currency notes, rather than the promissory notes that were issued by gold merchants. It became institutional. I proved my age by showing a school living certificate, which was issued by an institution where people could trust. So institutional institutions became trust markers. Banks were trusted. Why? Because banks built huge buildings, you see all the banks' impressive buildings. They made the investment in the costly spots of the business district. We look at your BKC. Yeah, you agree, where? Everywhere. London. Two miles so many banks. You operated out of that. You had large infrastructure, you know, this banks building, that banks building, because infrastructure doesn't walk away. Right? So you were operating in a way that another fly by night operator cannot. Right? So if I promise, and I can't take my building away, then I must keep my promise. Otherwise, people will come and beat me up or take over the building. Right? So one way to build trust is to make an offer, which somebody who is faking it cannot do. We'll start with the board. And so we've prepared this big board. And we will ask you to explain us these large frauds or scams which has happened in our country. These are the scams which made it to the news, which are the big frauds. To explain me how these scams happened. Like why such a intelligent people be educated people? See, people who were not very vulnerable still got scammed and with such insane big numbers. So which one do you want to start with first? Yeah, we could start with any. We could start with just case. Mr. S.B. Oh, so all this case. So what happened in this case? So in this case, he was due to seven crores as this says. Right? And in this, he was stored that his Adhar has been misused for some fraudulent activities. I don't recall maybe some drug or some money, something. And that's the problem. That Adhar card is being used for some-- For something else. For some, the various-- OK, activity. Some drug activity, as well. And then there was a quote here. And all kinds of things happened. The Chief Justice also appeared. And on camera, and he faced him. No, explain me from scratch. OK, so it's like there was his person, S.P. Oswal, who is a big textile business owner. Yes. And a Bhushan winner. He's a Padma Bhushan winner. Yes. OK. Yes. He was a respectable man, intelligent man. And a man who has seen life because he's a T-plus. Right? So he's not a kid. So he got it. Not at all. OK, so he gets a call from some random person appearing to be a police person. Some CBI officers and all that. OK. And I want to point out that in all of these cases, the same elements would play out. What? And the best part is, you see, in the compressed news stories that we get, we hear about coercion. We hear about the rest and the trauma. That's all real. But this camera really is a friendly person. He tells you that there is a problem, but he knows that you are not at fault. OK. He will help you out. That's where the story begins. Then he keeps building the story and he keeps giving you more and more details and like a movie that becomes complicated and they here find another obstacle, then another solution and another bigger one and another solution and it goes up and down till it finally results. In these cases, it always has already been a bad way with the victim losing money. So somebody pretending to be a CBA officer calls you and then asks you to do what? So he will tell you that Raj, there is a packet sent from your name. It bears your adhar number. Is this your adhar number? Yes, this is your address. Yes. So they all have all kinds of information. They have all this information. And then they will tell you that a parcel was booked yesterday and in routine check, it's been found, it contains drugs. Okay. Now you are the criminal suspect. And you will be in the jail. Obviously, because exporting narcotics of the country, neither it is legal here and if you are exporting it to a country where it is lexing up or it's death. That is nearly there. No questions asked. If you try to sell drugs in Singapore. So they call you and tell you that it's coming from Singapore or you were selling it? All you were sending it to Singapore. I'm just saying. Okay. They will make it even bigger. Yeah, it could be anything. It could be small. It could be big or whatever it is. They will read out sections of the law to you which are true. Okay. If you committed that. But you didn't. And they will tell you that the act has happened. Right. And this is the prime suspect is you. So what will you do? What will be your reaction? I'm not done it. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. But it's your Adha, isn't it? It's your address, isn't it? Which is true. And send to so and so. Your known person. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. The person detailed also they would they might have. Yeah. Why not? Then what happens? Now, if this is true. Now, think about that. Small probability that it's true. Right. Like a heart attack coming on. Right. What should you do? Should you treat it as a false positive or should you treat it as a false negative? No. I would get paranoid. I would. That's the only rational response. Right. Yeah. That there is a one in 10,000 possibility, one in a million possibility. But if this is real, I do not want this trouble. Yeah. And especially for this man, it will be too much because he the Padma Bhushans is like, my ears of reputation, stake in all everything will be. Correct. Correct. So what will you do? Do you have options? Really. No. You know, we discussed that the false negative missing something serious and calling it is nothing. Mm-hmm. When it is, it is the disaster. Yeah. Right. You have to avoid that. So you accept. Now, he will also tell you very sweetly that we know you are not involved. There have been other such cases. And we have helped them out. And we will help you. You will have to appear in court. There is an arrest warrant already issued unfortunately by now. So they have an arrest warrant as well. Yeah. And it's fake. Like, fake arrest warrant on my name. Yeah. They will tell you, read it out to you. It will be correctly worded. And they'll read out all the laws to you. And that's how you will get invested in. But can't I just at this point cut this and like call my lawyer? Yeah. You can. But can't people do that? People don't do that. In this case happened in 2024. And soon after that in October, the Prime Minister came on one episode of Parman Ki Bat. And he said, you know, Rukho, Socho, then action law. Actually that works better than anything else. The Rukho part is important. If you stop, you know, your entire emotional machinery gets engaged in about 90 seconds and stays engaged in the beginning very strongly. If you don't act, if you don't believe, if you stop for two minutes, the effect begins to wave. Right. But in first 90 seconds, only the Amigdala will get hacked. Yes. Yes. Precisely. It gets hijacked. And then you are not thinking you have a right to go. Yes. You are under the control of a very, very primitive portion of your brain, not your frontal cortex, but the Amigdala. You're not involved. But then okay, what do they say to keep me on phone and like give me? Because that's a somebody calls, pretends to be a CBI officer and asks you for and tells you that XYZ parcel was going on your name and there was a drug in drugs involved. And now you're the prime suspect. Till now, let's say that person's believing also. Okay. And rational reaction, lot of people who have lot to lose will react to it. Right. Now the next obvious thing for a large businessman like him should be, let me call either local police or call like my lawyer or someone, right? Or no. Is not. Is it not that obvious? No. It should be what he should do. Right. What do they do that he's not called his lawyer? They have kept him emotionally charged and engaged and therefore the ups and downs happen very fast in the sequence. They'll tell you there's nothing wrong. Then next moment they'll say, no, something has gone wrong. The case has got escalated. It has reached here. It has become more problematic. You will have to talk to the narcotics bureau now. We'll put you in touch with them. The arrest warrant has now been issued. The arrest warrant will, news will not be given to you when you just contacted. That's when only the parcel has been detected. But things move fast in this world, no? Okay. Step one is your other card was misused, misused and it was on a parcel which had drugs or something else. So you are the prime suspect. That's step one. So now step two is, okay, step one is Hamlet. Then step two is all of a sudden we have gotten a call from Narcotics Department. They are also tracking you. They are in the drugs. Hmm. Can we confirm? Confirmation. And is it happening while I'm still on the call? Yes. Yes. And they will tell you don't move. Stay there. The team is gone. The dispatch to arrest you. We will hold it. We will try to, we must act fast now. We don't want the damage to become worse. Right. So let's act fast. So they will keep urging you to act fast. And act fast on what? On whatever they are suggesting. Right. What should you do if this happens? Talk to the Narcotics. Tell them the circumstances of what happened or did not happen. And stop the warrant from being issued or file a case in the court or this or that. Whatever they will give you all kinds of options and and but they'll say that the team has gotten out of the police station to come arrest me. Maybe, maybe they will use that. They will, they will decide what to use based on how you are acting at that moment. Okay. People buy that. Yes. I mean, it's unbelievable that there's lots so much money, but they did. Okay. So then step two is Narcotics. Then. Then they will then they will tell you that you know there is a there is an officer. So you know, if he bribe him at this stage, maybe it'll work. So are you open for bribe. Sir, I have a little advice. You can do it. You can do it. Lock did lock. For someone who has crores. Lock did lock. Yeah. Yeah. You have to do it. You have to transfer it on your day lock. That is the first stage. Right. So it doesn't stop there. No, no, no. It will not stop. It has to reach these crores. No. People have been under digital as for six months. Six months. 137 transfers. All adding up to crores of rupees. That's also happened. So first you make the money. Yes. And they will say that now we're going to be whatever. Because you've bribe the wrong guy. That guy said you've bribe the guy. You think you can bribe me? Now you are a criminal. You really are a criminal because you bribe the government officer. Even if the narcotics case was fake, the bribery case is real. But you transferred the money. You have a police officer's account. Now you will be arrested for bribement officer doing his job. Even if? He was mistaken. Even if you are able to prove that I did not send that parcel, Raj sent it on and Raj is caught, but I did bribe someone. And they have it on the recording. You have transferred money from your account? But that account was beyond fake, you know? No, to someone, you believe he is the police officer. And he is the one who's got incensed, now bribe more. bribe his boss. So to boss. Get out of here, get out of this, get out of that, they will keep you engaged. And the human mind works in strange ways. If you and I are sitting in a little station or an airport, we may not talk to each other. If you start talking, we will continue talking, right? If you offer me a cup of tea and I order biscuits later, I will share the biscuits with you, right? We are invested. Same thing happens out here. You've paid one and a half lakhs. You want to believe that this guy tried to help you. It's only a temporary setback, because that belief preserves your mental image of yourself as a sane person, right? You are invested in that. A Padmup Bhushan. I mean, great regards for a person like him and for others, right? I'm not saying that they were foolish. They acted in the only way human beings are known to act. The only way in which human beings are designed to act and we can explore this, okay? And why evolutionarily, that was important. So they have a mental image now to protect. So what? Another five lakhs, okay? The more you keep transferring, the more and more you keep getting into the narrative, the more and more you defend the narrative. But what do they say next time? The ones you have 1.5 lakh in a let's hit 10 lakhs more. So sometimes the chain will break and the guy will go away, right? Those are the cases you don't hear about. They are the ones that add up to 54,000 crores that the Supreme Court mentioned, right? Some few will continue as all the, you know, long tail. But what do they say next is what I'm trying to understand. Now, now, now, right who? Now this thing has reached coach. Now this thing has reached court. So you have to bribe the judge as well. Maybe or face the judge at least, right? And your cases, your crime will be read out in front of the judge. The judge may pass an order, right? May ask you to paste to give a personal bond of a large amount. Then you don't have a friend you want to talk to, to post that bond amount. This camera will say, "Mehko de do na karde tha." Now, now, Bill Bond. Bill, now you have Bill. So this will continue until it will continue. And you, the more invested you have, if you have the money, you will be exhausted. And this is how it works. That is why that Rukopart is important. If you didn't transfer the first one and a half lakhs, the rest will not happen. So this is one type of case. This is digital arrest. This is one type of, there are many other ways in which this industry works. And so look at this. This is the hard case. What happened in this one? In this case, the daughter was supposedly involved in sex trafficking. Right? No money was paid in this case. But the trauma was so high, now this is important. The trauma was so high that she lost her life. On digital arrest. No, no, no digital arrest. It's a fake emergency case where the daughter is supposedly involved in sex trafficking. The mother is told to pay up and she's told to go home and all that. She reaches home and dies. Money is not actually paid. There is no money when she's done this case. She paid, she got a harder time because she couldn't believe that the daughter was involved in this. The stress reached such high proportion. The daughter was fine. Nothing ever happened to her. She never did anything. She was nowhere caught. The entire thing was fake. Do you have kids? I have. So if you're son or daughter, you get a call from some random person that your son's involved in money laundering, daughter's involved in ex-visory cases. Would you not call your son and daughter first? Not always reachable. That's an assumption. No, I can reach the people I want to reach for whatever. But first you'd be like, okay, make me speak to my kid. Yes. If you stop to think and decided what is happening here and how to take action, maybe you will not fall in trap. She also was not, she didn't actually transfer any money. Right. She maybe headed home to speak to her daughter or to figure out where the daughter is or what is happening. She simply lost her life. There was one case in which, after they cleaned out all the money from their parents, they told the victim to go and look after their parents. Get out now. The son is unaware that he has been arrested or that he is in any trouble. The parents have been under stress. The parents have been cleaned out. Now that they are cleaned out, he says go and look after your parents. Because they will be in stress and this guy reaches home and finds that, look, look, what has happened. But by then all the money, all the money was already transferred. Then he alerted the son. That's an act of kindness that you go and look after your parents. We just did this horrible thing to them. So now go and. Now they are showing their moral compass and be lying. So the interesting thing is that some of these people are victims themselves, the scammers. They are not the perpetrators. Their bosses are the perpetrators of the problem. They are acting on instructions. And they themselves could be victims. So they are the perpetrators of the problem. They are the perpetrators of the problem. And they are the perpetrators of the problem. Same playbook, same things repeated with variations. And this stands out as 58 crores. It's nothing startling. It's the same thing for 54,000 crores or maybe 5 lakh crores. This is just the outlier. 58 crores from one person. Not just in outlier. 58 crores. Yes. Amazing. And everywhere 0.01 percent people probably don't have that money. Yes. Yes. But everybody is equally affected. And the one who has self selects to become the headline. That's just it. To every year we lose 54,000 crores. Yes. Those cams. That we are aware of. Probably we will have many more. Much, much more. The problem in India is losing, let's say probably 1 lakh to lakh crore in scams. Yes. Correct. Your estimate is right. But maybe 2.5 lakh crores. Because how this estimate is arrived at is about 10 percent people only have a report. 7 percent to 10 percent people. And 24,000 crores was reported figure for one of the years. We will apply by 10 or 14. And you can kind of triangulate this number also. The world economy is large. And this scam industry, online scam industry, right? Not the cyber crime industry, which is even larger. Or scam industry, which is even larger than that. This online digital telecom and labor communication and labor kind of of scam industry is about 1.03 trillion trillion dollars per annum. This is an estimate put out in a report by Gasa. And 1 trillion just 1.03 trillion dollars. People are losing in scams every year. To arrive at a country's figures like India, multiply the GDP by that number, 0.9. And you will get to 1/2 lakhs of which 7 to 10% would be reported. So you will get to 24 to 36,000 crore estimate actual numbers which are reported. So that's how you can see the scale of the problem. And that's why it's an industry and we can discuss that. So explain me this industry first. You said, so who are the, who starts this, who are the people behind it, what are the steps involved. How do they, because if something is happening on a trillion dollar scale, it has to be organized. It can't be like five guys sitting out of probably Jyam Taha, just making random calls and you know taking on money, that's definitely not that. So explain me this mechanism. Yes. So let's, let's try to understand it like a normal industry. You would understand. Okay. What are the few things that happen? An industry or a business will have procurement, will have manufacturing, we'll have distribution, we'll have fulfillment, and we'll have treasury operations. These will be the normal things you will divide a business into. Now this, for this cam industry, the tam worldwide tam is one trillion dollars. So this kind of analysis should apply to them as much as it does to anybody else. Okay. So first is procurement. If you want to sell burgers, you need potato. So you need to buy potato, you need to buy good quality potato. And that's where it starts. And you need to buy spices, breads and whatever. That's sourcing, that's procurement. Then they will be manufacturing, they will be a process of converting, you don't sell potatoes. Procure it to make burgers or meet to fill burger patties. So you will have a manufacturing, then you will have distribution, you will have to put it. I have open many source, advertise, get collect orders online, whatever. And then you need, then you have fulfillment, somebody places order, the burger has to reach that person. And money has to be collected and all that. And then all the money is to be collected and used and whatever. So that's the treasury operations. They have this banking operation. Somebody has to be responsible for the trillion dollar which will ultimately be collected. So this is how you would think of a business. So let's think of this cam industry in the same way. So that's the source information. Procure that there's information about you. Your phone number information, you know, we mentioned that they have your other number or some your address. So there are on the dark web and otherwise available, a lot of information which you pay for and you can collect it. And that's a sourcing cost. If you did an analysis, if you wrote the books of account for a business like that, then it will be the sourcing cost. Then manufacturing. Now manufacturing is highly automated here. There are, there are. Toolkit is available, right? Websites available. Scripts available to run certain operations. Voice cloning tools available. So the manufacturer, the machinery that you can use this to construct a scam. This is the manufacturing part. That's also available. Meaning I didn't get it. What is the manufacturing in this? How do you convert the potato to the burger? Yes. So how do you convert information into a scam? Okay. Right. So I need to reach out to you. How do I do that? And I need to have a believable story. I need to have some sets which I can use a utilize. If I want to put malware on your phone, I don't know how to make malware. I don't have the tech skills. Right. So there are people who have created those tech solutions. Okay. So I can source the malware from somewhere and put it. I can create a like Shopify can create a shop for you. There are tools available to create scam websites for you. Okay. Right. So that's manufacturing. But I would need people also. I would need people also who would scam it on my behalf. Yeah. Of course. So the machinery, a lot of it works on its own. So it doesn't require people because these are sophisticated tools which are available. But then people are also required. You are right. Somebody has to dress up like a policeman and show and all that. Somebody has to call also. Somebody has to call if a call is involved. And that's part of distribution though. That's reaching out to people. Right. Okay. Right now only the script is getting prepared. Yeah. So you are getting ready to. The manufacturing is there. It has to reach the population also distribution. Okay. Distribution is SMS as a channel. Calls. Calls. Social media. Links. Random links. Yeah. Websites. Social media platforms. This is these are the distribution channels through which you reach the victim or your target. Okay. Right. Like any normal business does. They do exactly the same. I have so many doubts on this. Okay. One by one wheel cover. So first, as you said, rock your mind. Information. So these cameras would need a lot of information about people like you and me. Okay. Then. So where do they get this information from? Where do they buy your Adharka details, your credit card details, your email account, your phone number, your health data, etc. Yes. So it's partly a manufacturing problem, partly a sourcing problem. A sourcing problem. And let me explain that. Sometimes you would tell the number yourself when they call up. They can trick you into telling your Adhaan number. Right. So they only need to start engaging with an own number. Perhaps. Right. But very often they will have other information. But they would need phone number also, no? They will need phone number. Phone numbers are available, Raj. How do you think people send so much spam? Right. So where are the available? Is what I'm asking? Like who buys them, who sells them? So where there are no laws around it so people can just download data from where? No, no, no. There have been laws. There are protections. And at one time, some of these lists got built by registering to access it officially. Right. Like like telemarketers were expected back in early 2015, 2016. They were expected to register on a TRAI portal. And declare who they are. Then they could get the preferences of people. Right. That they don't want to hear from you. So when you get the preferences, you are supposed to scrub it. You are not supposed to call them. But someone's group less people registered, not for calling you. But for just getting access to their telephone number and your preference, then so multiple copies of that to into the market. Right. How much can you buy an information for or like a number call? So I don't know what they're going for prices. Yeah, but it'll be a rupee, two rupee per number number. Number, other card, whatever. You know, other card number is more difficult to obtain, but not impossible. Because everybody keeps a copy of your adar, which is against the law. Right. You're not supposed to keep copies of other people's adar. But everybody asks, can I see your adar and then photo copies it and keep safety in the hotel will keep it. My point is, on an average, more than 77% people in India get more than three scam calls a day. Yes. That's data. That's publicly out there. Almost. every day we are getting more than three calls and some people get way more. And it starts the day you buy a SIM card. Okay. Depending. Okay. Probably SIM card you get less, but the day you buy credit card or a car or something like a phone or something expensive, then you're gone, then you're doomed. So how do you know? Like did your pizza seller sell that information? Did that phone guy sell you information? Did that car guy sell you information? Do you have no idea? So how do you hold any one account? You know, I was I was speaking to and this happened. This happened when you forget to speak. And okay, this I'll give you an insincere enough said this multiple times. This is pre pandemic. One of the guys who are selling me SIM cards. Okay. One from these top three large companies. He came to me and he said, Rand, he just came to me and we like, you know, this is the number, which is an exciting number, which has come. Last has five zeros and stuff like that. So you should buy it. And I said, okay, fine, I will, I will buy it. But at that time, because I was running a company, so on my name, they were already three cards issued, right? For one for my company, one which is old, one is now the new number. So he said on one name, you can't have more than five. So you should not buy this extra number on your name, because three is already being exhausted. Because I go, do I do? He said, I'll get you new other card. And I was like, meaning he's like, I'll get you someone else's other card in 50 rupees and buy this number on that person's name. And then later, whenever you want to transfer it on your name, you do it. Or if you don't want to do it, you do it by as many SIM card as you want for 50 rupees in other card. And like I cut that guy off, I blocked him immediately because I sent some sort of scam and I want to be part of it. But my point is some random guy selling me an in other card of some another person for 50 rupees openly. It's that easy. Yeah. So imagine these guys were sourcing information for living for them. It'll be scoring other card information. Would be would be like for one rupees, I have 50 rupees. I'm getting. I'm getting a card. So so there will be many people who would give an adhar card willingly for 500 bucks of their own 1000 rupees, 5000 rupees. We are a poor country. And many people may not even know what has happened. Right. Yeah. I can go to a person. If I if I offer an honest person, 5,000 rupees to misuse the adhar card, he'll say go jump in a lake. Even if he's poor. Yeah. Right. But if I tell him that you won 500 rupees lottery or 100 rupees lottery. Right. Just give me your adhar card. You all you need, all I need to do is keep a record who I gave this 100 rupees to. The easiest way I can do is just to write the adhar card in my form. Here is my form. Give me a copy and let me write your name and other and take 500 bucks. You one 500 bucks is fine. I can't give it to you unless I can authenticate you. I will 100 rupees more than enough. Right. So you can procure it for 100 bucks and you can sell it 20 times. 200 times the scale is important. Yeah. So you can go and force us. How many adhar cards do you want to force? How many? Where you can scan the adhar card. All those touch points, lakhs of them in the country. The potential places where the adhar card can be taken out. Right. Name, address also is given on other. All of them are there. There is a bit of a buzz. Right. And there you are. Now somebody will collect it, clean it, verify everything is all right. Right. Telephone number matched to your adhar. Then sell it. That is the sourcing. The first part we talked about. Okay, oh man. So sourcing. Is that also a racket? So it is a racket. It's not a racket. It's an industry within the industry. Right. It's a simple thing. All you have to do is find whichever way. Some other numbers and names and all that people will will give it because they don't. I mean, they don't hesitate in giving the other. So so many admasers. But just say you said this is an industry. Right. So they've put your men manufacturing, distribution, fulfillment, treasury, five steps. Somebody must be running this. There will be a top boss. No. And the top boss would have no, no, no. This is a decentralized organization where these are procured as services. You but the trees you don't grow. You don't grow potatoes. You buy them. Who grows? You don't care. There's a Monday where it is available that Monday in this case might happen to be on the dark web or might even be available on the CD from somewhere. Right. Okay. So but that some guy like some top individual must be the top gun for trick your own all of these. No. Because if it's a no, because it is not there are five steps to a trillion dollar industry. Probably a billion dollar industry or like small part one percent of five percent five billion dollar industry would be just sourcing information. Yeah. So yes, that's true. So there are many people sourcing information. Many people buying it. Many vendors of this. It's an industry. It's not an organization. It's an industry. Right. There's a lot of traders. So there are a lot of people. Sometimes accumulation happens that is also true. Somebody becomes big. They have many parts of this integrated and you know becomes a vertically integrated vertically integrated company. Then they are caught. The government goes after them and they that's ring is smashed. Which is not a good thing. Because when you smash it, you create space for a thousand other innovators to come in. So then what do you do if you don't catch these guys? Yeah. So I never said that this is an easy problem to solve and we can it is one of those problems which are called wicked problems. Wicked problem is defined by church men. In a way, the wicked problem is one which if you try to solve, you don't know what is the rule at which you know that you've solved the problem. There is no stopping rule. Right. You don't know when the problem is solved. There is no definition of a solution to the problem. Okay. And when you try to solve the problem, you understand the problem better, but the problem shifts. And this goes on and on and on. Scammer will try to scam less than 10,000 people. Yes. Five will get scammed rest won't. Yes. Okay. What's the probability by the way? What do you think? So problem out of 100. How many people? Lovely. That's lovely. You were talking about trillion dollar industry with low distribution costs. Right. What is the cost of sending out 10,000 SMS or what's that message is or click creating clicks on. This thing right nothing. So it's a the costs are very small. The manufacturing machinery has perfected it. But how many click rates on SMS have gone up? Because AI is able to write better copy to engage you into clicking than human being scored. So these scammers click rate is actually exceeded what used to be the marketers click rate a few years ago. You know the the amount for the highest crypto scam. Jobs cam. Job offer which was fake which led to a crypto scam. How much amount was involved? Half a billion dollars. Somebody scammed out of people. Somebody scammed the crypto exchange itself. By offering a job to one of their senior software engineers as a PDF file which had a malware. From there they went into their servers from those servers it it managed to get enough servers in in control to be able to. Right. Whatever transaction they wanted and it got endorsed by the rest. What weakness do they identify fear greed. Emergency. What is it? What give what all of the first scam. Fear and greed are good. Emergency is a type of fear. Right. And therefore you need to figure out where there is greed and where there is fear. Right. And that they are very good reliable markers to know that this camera is active. So you know at one stage you asked what could be done. What how could these people act or how do you identify on this. So I give you five tests. Right. I'm not offering any single solution anywhere because I want to prove to you that all of them will fail. Okay. Right. So there have to be ways but what those is I will arrive then. First is the alarm. Something somebody initiated, you did not. So first thing to realize in a situation is that, did you initiate this conversation, somebody else initiated it? If somebody else initiated it and you seem to be getting sucked into it, whether out of excitement or fear, that should be the first alarm bell. Okay. Right? Secondly else initiated it. Second is they'll keep on saying it's urgent. They will create urgency. Something has to be done at this moment right now because it is when you are acting hastily looking at it or thinking, "Kardia, you will make a mistake." This lady Tee that I talked about, she saw that it is rupees and still filled in the coupon code that was given to them, to give it to her and it was actually an amount because she had got tired by then, right? Of doing that. I mean she didn't say I had got tired by it but I have personal experience that you know tiredness does this to you. So somebody trying to make it faster is like Lear's camera. Third is fear or excitement or whatever it is. If you are acting out of fear, be aware of your motives for acting. Is it out of fear? Is it out of greed? Is it out of excitement? There is a problem. Right? That you have to. You have to be aware of how you are behaving. Yeah. Right? Then. Then what else? Is it reversible? That's what you should ask yourself, whatever action you are taking. It is always reversible. You can't take that. If I pay you something, it's. So that's a huge thing. Somebody asking you to take an irreversible step. It's a huge red flag. That's a huge red flag. And that's it. I mean basically. Three. So three or four things. An irreversible step, excitement and all of these things mean that you are in a scams situation. And that's what can help you. We stop yourself. Cut the call. As you did. Right? The moment you realize this, walk away. There's no other action. Don't call your lawyer. Right? You suggested that call the lawyer, why not? You should not be in this situation. But then in the digital arrest thing, I can understand that somebody who has lot to lose will panic. There is no way that person will cut the call and just sleep peacefully. So he knows that somebody else has started the call. That somebody is trying to hurry me into doing things. He's seen signs of this thing. I am afraid right now to act in this kind of a situation. These are things they can see. And he's asking me to make a payment, which cannot be reversed. Right? Or asking me to part with information, which I cannot take back because it is true. And I'm given it away. Then no. You have to say no and cut the call. Nothing will happen in the world. Nothing will happen. I know. But I'm saying someone must be in their vulnerable, vulnerable state and they will fall for it. Vulnerable, yes, gullible, no. The respected people, respectable people, intelligent people, not gullible ones. Get scammed. Right? Vulnerable, yes, that is why the first two minutes are important. Slow down. Stop. Right? Don't let the amygdala dictate your response. Understand the way human beings are constructed. Once you understand that, you will not act like that. But I agree with you. It's difficult. How does a scammer, what's his psychology? This scammer uses because they try to be friendly. They try to be friendly. Yeah. So why are they trying to be friendly? Can't they just like scare you a lot and get money out of you? So they scare you. But they need you to act. And you are more persuaded to act by a friendly voice. Who's trying to help you? I heard the transcript of these scams playing out where the wife is telling the husband that the husband tells the wife that this guy is a scammer. And the wife tells the husband, why can't you cooperate with him? He's trying to be helpful. We are in trouble. She says, said that on call and it's recorded. And I heard that recording, then why can't you just let him, the gentleman is trying to help us. We've got into trouble. He's helping us. So just do it. Do somebody train them? Are they training schools? There are. Of course. It's an industry. So it's got training manuals. It's got 16 hour shifts. So what is about them that you guys are not able to catch them? You have all the resources in the world, all the technology in the world, that's the whole organization, which is there to detect frauds, to make sure that the trust keeps there. You are chief trust officer. So even after all of this, what is it that scammers are able to do that you guys are not able to catch? The even bigger problem is that it's an empty market. Let me explain to you that there is no incentive anywhere to solve the problem despite it being a trillion dollar problem. That's a big statement to make. Right. There's no incentive. I may explain why. Right. The first is that the problem is very diffused. Lots of people lose money. Some few of course become a big headlines here. But the actual losses are much larger and very diffused. But the people who would need to spend money against a very large diffused problem will have to bear their expense. It's not my problem. Why should I spend the money? There will be a lot of money required to spend to stop them. And it's worth spending. It's not a lot of money in the order of trillions of dollars. But even if it's millions of dollars, somebody has to write a check for a million dollars. No, that million dollars check is not easily written because the person who's trying to write it will ask what is my ROI for this million dollar. Right. Okay. Everybody else is losing. Fine. If I had to pay a million dollar to give every Indian 10 minutes more of life, will I write a check? No. It's not my problem. But the million dollar is my problem. I'll keep it. Let everybody write 10 minutes earlier in their lives. It's not going to affect their lives very much. So good. It's a fair outcome. I will justify it to myself and to my conscience and the Lord that they were going to die anyway after five minutes. No, they died five minutes earlier, 10 minutes earlier. It's murder. If you kill somebody 10 minutes earlier in his life, right? You will be right for murder. But I would commit that very easily by simply, don't ask me. So it's a diffused problem with the costs concentrated in a few hands. Right. And we can discuss that. The second thing is what you don't see, you are not incentivized to do anything about. The bullets that miss you. Ah, the bullets, you care about. It never reached you. If we can prevent scam from reaching you, you won't even know that there was an attempt made against you. You don't see the value. So, if you are my customer and I spend money to prevent scam for you and you don't even see the value, why am I spending money? Yeah. So that's one problem. Right? Third is the problem of the person who you are asking to act. If he acts, he may have a consequence. Inaction has no consequence. I didn't do it. Okay. Suppose a fight breaks out here in your office, in your operations here. I do nothing about it. I'm safe. If I intervene and beat up one person because I think he's wrong, I could be arrested. What would I do? My wearers are my incentivized. My problem is not that I can be saved. I'm going. Even if I see the problem, I would not want to intervene because action has a consequence. Right? Then the conscientious tend to get caught. the ones who will try to organize and this thing, they are the ones who will be questioned as to what they did and why they did that and how did this. So that's a problem. So the consciences will draw their hands. Then there are other interesting reasons. The toll booth problem. The toll booth problem is that the guy who stands to gain is the toll booth operator. So why would he discourage traffic? And you should ask me this question as well. I'm going to make less money on traffic. If I reduce that spam and scam traffic. So there is a toll booth problem over here. The toll operator has no incentive to reduce the traffic. So that's a telecom guy who has no incentive to reduce this? I wouldn't say that entirely. But this is an element of the problem that must be understood. It's not an accusation. It's the nature of the problem that needs to be understood. No, but in your way, the way you are saying it, probably the telecom guys are not incentivized to stop this because they are also losing like a lot of revenue. Because it's like not their problem. If people are buying same cards and using it to scam, how do they get? So because if they cut off, let's say, 20 like people in India who are trying to possibly scam or, you know, get on a call which is related to all the scam. They're cutting the user base by 20 like and then minutes by probably millions of minutes right. So a telecom guy is not a guy. These are thousands of people. Yeah, telecom. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What I'm saying is, no, no, not the company. There are divisions in that. There is a division that sells the same cards, right. There is a division that does something else. They have their own incentive structures. Their own KPI metric metrics. That's how we organize businesses. This is an impact that you will have. But what other way of organizing do you have? You need to organize it in some structure. That's why I let me point out. Ahead announced a massive, you know, Mr. Gopal, the tell himself came on television and he wrote to his subscribers and everyone about this fight against scam. Only he can because he's the top guy. He can recognize the problem and act on it. Somebody below him will not act. Why? Because one guy wants to act and there are three other guys who's incentives are not aligned with that action. If I want to act, I have a colleague who wants to sell more sims. Right. I have another colleague who wants to run his network in a certain way, doesn't want to deploy any such solutions inside the network, which will cause expenses in the network. So he will not do that. Right. Where all it'll affect the whole of the organization. That is why the buying in or right at the top is necessary. The telco has to stand up and say, yes, we want to do this and we will do it. And they have to own the responsibility. But I told you, owning the responsibilities of problem, liability issues, legal issues, possibility of getting sued for this and that too much trouble. So don't even acknowledge and who loses people lose. The telco doesn't lose the money. Right. So you're asking them to spend money, time, effort and and take on all the responsibilities. And then the ones and they are the ones who are saving their own money. No. So are why questions will be asked by the CFO. So CFO is not there to do that. Only the CEO of the organization will. Who sees the entire picture? Yeah. Who probably wants it because then the trust index will go up for them. Yes. So that is. Can't like telecom people be like pay us a premium with the 50 hundred rupees a month and we make sure that no scam call reaches you. Because they will have data. No, they will have data. They will have a data alone is not enough. Well, see how true caller right true caller actually tells you a lot that these are scam calls majority of scam calls get detected by true caller in a jiffy. So can't like so. Let me put the question large like telecom companies do the same thing. Let me put the question back to you. True colors widely used. And if people and it's free to use for a certain tier. Right. So why is why is two color note wiped out spam scam? No, they they've not scam. They've not wiped off scam. But they inform you that this might be a scam calls you. They do. But the action is again with you. Right. The the it's like what contaminated water is sent to your home, but you have an RO to filter it. No, so do it. That's the wrong model. The the water that flows into your home should be clean water should be put. But then there is we are not able to clean this whole system. Why not? It's a trillion dollar problem. So you are trying to solve and it's not solvable. No, so that's what you're saying. I'm pointing out the reasons for why it is not solvable. And if people will work together to solve this, it is possible to solve. Right. What is not possible to do is solve the problem at the device end entirely. I love true color people. They know them. They're friends. That's good. They're doing what they can do. And they should be encouraged because everybody should be encouraged to find solutions. But why should the scammers reach you? The network should be able to catch it. I even before it rings on your on your device, because leaving the decision with you with a warning that this may be scam is the problem because one misjudgment from you and you are a victim. I absolutely agree. But because authorities are not able to figure out how to control these cameras and keep growing on. And it keeps increasing. It's not just in the ads globally all around the world. So it's a problem that we are incapable of building certain kind of frameworks of our authorities are, I don't know, policy, which is preventing this these camps to happen. Right. So why don't we enable telco company to be like you blocked. But at least the moment you actually figure out that this is a scam call and probably calling like 50,000 hundred people at the same time from the same number. Keep blocking this. Yes, that is done already. That is done already. But for the case, I was going to tell you about the scale of the problem. When a DOT started blocking the international calls. In one day, after this system went live, they blocked 1.35 crore calls. Right. And then huge. It made a difference. That thing got stopped. But all scam vanished. Right. There are ways and means by which somebody will invent something else and will come here. The point I'm making is it's a battle that needs to be fought in a certain way. Right. And it's for me to describe. I'm not saying that my company or my regulations or whatever is solving this problem entirely, but it's for you to judge. I leave that. I will give you the description. And then you see how we are approaching the problem. If you ask me, right. You can also ask me about how I did when I was working with TRII, for example, where today's regulations came in and I'm happy to answer that question also. Let me point out a few things that have happened in other jurisdictions because you said that it's a global problem. In UK, they have decided that even if you have made the payment, but you got scammed, you are entitled to compensation. Two years ago, right. So if you get scammed with UK, you getting a money back. You are getting within certain limits and you should not have colluded. You can voluntarily lose money also. No, no solutions are that obvious. Okay. Straight forward. Right. Yeah. But then who's paying that compensation? The Telcos or the banks. Yes. Second, it's penalizing a lot actually. Yes. But it is effective in this hand. From a citizen point of view, I love it from an entrepreneur point of view. I hate it. Yes. So, so one solution. I am. Okay. You are Singapore. Singapore has another. solution. They have the shared responsibility framework. It came in about two years ago. What they do is they say that if scan happens, your bank must pay, unless they can show that they did everything that was conceivable according to the rules. They are fully compliant and therefore they are off. In that case, the liability shifts to the telco. Why did this happen? Now, it becomes the telco's problem then to prove that all the things that they were supposed to do, they did. Once all of that is also done, the residual risk is that of the subscriber. So, as a citizen, if the bank is able to get away, the telco is able to get away, then you can. Then you have to bear the loss, not otherwise. Okay, hold on. Doesn't solve the problem that easy. Singapore has not mandated use of AIML to detect these scams on its telecom networks. Whether the telco's do it or not is a different issue. It's not mandated them to do it. Okay. Now, all those problems come back. Why should I act? Why I should spend the money when I'm not the beneficiary and all those four or five things I told you? Will they do it? No. So, now another thing, if I have a telco, what would I do? If I was leaving under Singapore's laws, I would say, "Sorry, calls call scam market though." So, when a scam call actually arrives and you say, "I'm scammer," I would say, "But I want you." That was a scam call because I do on the side of false positives. I treat everything as a scam call and I alert everything as a scam call. The signal disappears, but the liability from the telco side is now reduced, but usefulness to the person is gone. So, you look at the incentive structure and you will discover why it's not likely to work in Thailand. They have a shared responsibility frame of a different kind. They don't say in a waterfall that, you know, if not this one. This has happened. What is the contributory liability of liability? You will pay. You have 20% liable, you have 15% liable, whatever liable, you pay. I have such penalties actually been imposed, not yet. It's still coming up. But you'll have a problem doing this allocation and who will do the allocation and the members are going to arbitration and there's a whole large. And when I mentioned Cambodia and Myanmar, you also mentioned Thailand there. The Thailand problem is that the Thai citizens are getting scammed and the people scamming them are Thai who work out of neighboring country. So, they traveled in the morning, they do a work commute, they go into the neighboring country where they have a job. The job is to scam these people back and they are able to speak the local language and understand everything and then they come back. So, they earned the money outside the country. But, well, they need jobs. These are the jobs that are available. How is India solving it? What are you doing? So, there's two questions. And let me answer and then you can judge how the efforts come together. India looked at the problem of fraud and scam quite early. In 2018, I brought out a regulation for controlling spam and scam. And Tanla platforms was one of the first companies to come forward to build that infrastructure for its enforcement. This laid the foundation for what will be necessary to have a bigger fight against scam in the next few years. And as soon as it came on, the problem of spam started decreasing. But spam, while it was not the main problem that we are discussing today, it is what hides scammed. So, it's important to get rid of spam also if you want to get rid of scam. And that got cut down to half. But, it was not enough and in 2021 regulators were already thinking government was concerned that the problem of this thing is going up. So, actually, I remember in 2022 at the India mobile congress that Chairman TRII, Dr. Vagela, he articulated this requirement to find scammed in the IMC. And other agencies were also engaged at that time. DoT soon after launched its portals in Charsathi. And MHA had already launched earlier in the 1930 and cybercrime reporting portal. So, these efforts were on. Later on, RBI also brought in its Mule Hunter. It's catching 20,000 Mule accounts every month. DoT's efforts to cut down the foreign-based scammers from targeting India with spoof numbers cut out 1.35 crore. Connections in 24 hours. That was the scale of the operation. But all of this was not going to make a difference. This still left a large part of the scam moving through the networks. Because every institution was looking at its own area and dealing with it. So, TRII brought actually all the regulators together. And they started coordinating and they started articulating what is required. And TANLA's response was to build a system that will stay inside the network and look at spam, detect it and disable it. While everybody else looked at the periphery. And we built a system which can detect scams in less than 50 milliseconds in the network. 50 milliseconds is shorter than the blink of an eye. The blink of an eye usually takes 2,000 to 300 milliseconds. So, one fifth of that. So, it can detect it and it can be caught over there. But it's not as simple. We worked with the regulators. We saw what the world was talking about. We looked at what Ireland was doing. Singapore was doing. Others were doing. We learned from what their concerns were. We talked to the regulators here. We'll talk to the customers here. And then built the product. We launched it in 2023, which I am in himself expressed at the launch that he has seen very impressive results by what it can do. And this was, you know, this was done with full regulatory discipline. The product was proven in a regulatory sandbox. It addressed the concerns that the regulators had expressed. So, it preserves privacy. It looks at metadata as much as possible. It picks up faint signals from the content itself, but fleetingly in milliseconds and then makes a determination. Nothing else is retained. So, it's completely privacy preserving. And these kind of precautions, these regulatory precautions were very important and have proved to be even more important now. Now you have deep fakes. You have voice that can be cloned. You have faces which can be put even in video. Your face can be replaced inside a video stream, right? Not even a recording. So, it becomes even more important that you should be able to do what you need to do in a privacy preserving manner, right? So, and fast. And so performance has to be tested and all of this has to be tested. And it's paid off the dividends because we are able to do this. You would ask, does it work? Don't take my word for it. Take Indonesia's word for it. This country was losing five billion estimated five billion US dollars every year. It's still losing. And and one CEO there of the largest second largest network in Dosat. He decided to tackle the problem. [BLANK_AUDIO] We talked earlier about nobody writing a check for a problem which doesn't concern them, but always concern somebody else. He decided to do otherwise and wrote that check. We installed the Wisely AI platform in the Indonesian network at Indosat, two billion messages it got, and 400 million are these scam messages out of those two billion. And this led to an estimated saving of $500 million for its subscribers who didn't get those messages. This was reported by the CEO to the investors in the yearly call in the year end results. And it showed that the customers rewarded the network with higher RPO and low-chern. They did not leave the network that is they felt safer, 75% in surveys said that they felt safer to be on that network. So it turned out to be good business. That RPO is very high for investment in this. That case study, the two cases studies actually have been written by the London Business School on this implementation. And as being taught today on how a network can clean its pipes. The other question is inherent in what you asked is that can India do it? Of course, it is a technology developed here, proven here in a regulator sandbox. It's live in some networks. And the banks have seen results, some of the banks and the networks have seen results. So the question is such a thing has to be switched on everywhere, right? All networks for it to become effective. So yes, the answer is that we can do it. We are at the forefront and we have the tech in this country. Detection and disabling is a very important part of within the network of all the peripheral things that are already being done by other agencies and regulators, other participants also in the ecosystem. But all of this is still not the full problem. What you should not go through the system, this is taking care of. But what should go into the system also is an important question. And that is a question of permission of consent of the subscriber, the end user. So that's where we stand today. Here's the last question that I ask everybody. It's, what is the cost that you have paid personally to become who you are today because the question is, you know, let me reframe this like what is the cost that you have paid to become a trustable person in an industry which is full of just cams and frauds. So the cost that I have paid is, you see, I've lived with a kind of burden, right, of constantly thinking about the issues of struggling with, trade offs of trying to study where this leads. It's a lot of cost and time and effort that you invest in. It's been good for me because I've been curious kind of in this respect and in other ways, like, you are a curious person. And that's the investment that I've had to make. And to safeguard the trust, you have to hold yourself up to a standard of behavior and not reach that trust. Have I always acted in a trustworthy manner? No, to be honest. And I think anyone who claims otherwise is lying. And when you don't always act in a trustworthy manner, it's an even bigger burden to carry. Because you're aware of what you did, but you might make a mistake. And that remains a problem to deal with. So it's a burden in that sense to carry, isn't it? So the cost you have paid is a constant burden. Yes, it is. It is living with constant burden on your head 24/7. In a sense, yes. And there are other material costs also, of course, of choices in career. I've had a fair amount of choices in life. People have. Do you think you've paid an opportunity cost? Yes, yes. That's what I was coming to. I've had four gone opportunities, which could have got me money or other power, fame, wealth, whatever, mostly money. Which I didn't accept. Why didn't you choose the path of money, wealth and then excited you? It is exciting, but you have to. You have to make choices, no? You choose to stand somewhere and you look at the world from there. Would you choose any different if you can go back? I think I would try to be more trustworthy than I have been. So I won't roll back. I would say it's important to. Easy Raj. The company is run on profits, of course. But what I admire about this company and why I joined this was that they found her away. He communicates a passion and vision, which is larger than almost anyone articulating it in this space. And that kind of attracts you. I'm doing a regulatory work and thinking that I was doing with the government also. We talked about the fact that you have invested in something early on, then you don't give it up. For 40 years I've been a government servant. I've been thinking like that. I am not the beneficiary of actions that I take or would take. If this was someone else. You think it was much easier for me to join the company here because I was told you are not answerable for PNL. Because if I have a PNL responsibility, then it becomes difficult to. Same toolkit problem will come back and not me. So I said, "All right, if it's not a PNL problem, then I can join you." And if the opportunity is to develop and work in a certain way, and if the company has that vision. And there's everybody working in that. So it's been a very satisfying way to live. You're not like I answer. The second part of the answer where you said, "Cost of becoming trustworthy is a lot of money." Which makes sense. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming here and spending time with us. Thank you so much for watching this episode till the end. Now you have to do three things. Number one, subscribe to this channel right now. The more you subscribe, the better the guess we will be able to get for you. Number two, please comment and let us know what did we do wrong and what did we do right. Because the more you give us feedback, the better we will be able to make episodes for you. And number three, please share this episode with at least one person because one conversation can change someone's entire life. I'll see you next time. Until then, keep figuring out.