Builder.AI: Yet Another Global Indian Scam?

A London-based startup builder.ai, founded by an Indian named Sachin Dev Duggal,  recently filed for bankruptcy after its ‘neural network’ was discovered to be 700 Indians coding in India. The company promoted its "code-building AI" to be as easy as "ordering pizza".  It was backed by nearly half a billion dollar investment by top tech investors including Microsoft. The company was valued at $1.5 billion. This is the latest among a series of global scams originating in India. 

In recent years, India has emerged as a major hub for global scams. The US government has alleged in court documents that a large enterprise originating from India was involved in stealing nearly $1.5 billion from elderly Americans. Recently, two Indian nationals, Pranay Mamindi and Kishan Patel, were found guilty of participating in a money laundering conspiracy, concealing the source of the money, and using the illegally gained money to further promote a criminal enterprise.  Six other defendants from India also pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. 

These global scams appear to have started amid widespread unemployment in India. Many of the scammers previously worked in call centers where they learned to use computers and telecommunications networks to reach out and talk to Americans. In 2022, U.S. citizens fell victim to a massive loss of over $10 billion from phishing calls orchestrated by illegal Indian call centers, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). 

Indian-Americans, too, have been found guilty in a number of high-profile scams. A federal jury convicted former Theranos executive Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, an Indian-American entrepreneur, on all 12 counts of fraud in 2022. Balwani was born in 1965 in Pakistan to a Sindhi Hindu family. His one-time girlfriend and partner Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, was convicted on similar charges earlier that year. Both face up to 20 years in prison. 

Last year, a federal judge sentenced former Outcome Health CEO Rishi Shah, an Indian-American, to 7½ years in prison for a massive fraud scheme that prosecutors say enabled a “jet-set lifestyle” featuring private aircraft, yachts and a tony Chicago home.

In 2020, Dr. John Nath Kapoor, Indian-American CEO of Insys Therapeutics, was found guilty of conspiring to recklessly and illegally boost profits from the opioid painkiller Subsys, a fentanyl spray designed to be absorbed under the tongue, according to multiple media reports.

Rajat Gupta, an Indian-American former global head of McKinsey & Company, was convicted of insider trading in 2012. He was charged with passing on confidential business information about Goldman Sachs to hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam. Gupta was found guilty on multiple counts of conspiracy and securities fraud and served a two-year prison sentence. 

India Ranks Number One For Misinformation and Disinformation

Beyond the hub of scams and frauds, it seems that India has earned a reputation as the epicenter of misinformation and disinformation. According to experts surveyed for the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risk Report, India was ranked highest for the risk of misinformation and disinformation.  This was on full display during the recent conflict with Pakistan. 

After the recent Pahalgam militant attack in Kashmir, the Indian government immediately blamed it on Pakistan without any investigation or evidence. More than a month later, the perpetrators have neither been clearly identified nor apprehended. And yet, the government of Prime Minister Modi proceeded with air strikes inside Pakistan. Pakistan retaliated and shot down several Indian fighter jets, including its most advanced French Rafales. The conflict began to quickly escalate with strikes and counter-strikes, with the world fearing a nuclear exchange. This prompted the United States and several other countries to intervene and force a ceasefire in less than 4 days of armed conflict. 

During this short 4-day period, the Indian mainstream media was filled with lies. Here's how the Washington Post reported this: "Times Now Navbharat reported that Indian forces had entered Pakistan; TV9 Bharatvarsh told viewers that Pakistan’s prime minister had surrendered; Bharat Samachar said he was hiding in a bunker. All of them, along with some of the country’s largest channels — including Zee News, ABP News and NDTV — repeatedly proclaimed that major Pakistani cities had been destroyed". 

It is unfortunate but true: Fraud and falsehood have become endemic in the Indian society.  Part of the blame falls squarely on the ruling BJP party which promotes falsehoods. In 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-hand man and home minister Amit Shah told his party's volunteers commonly known as Modi Bhakts: "We can keep making messages go viral, whether they are real or fake, sweet or sour". "Keep making messages go viral. We have already made a WhatsApp group with 32 lakh people in Uttar Pradesh; every morning they are sent a message at 8 am", Shah added, according to a report in Dainik Bhaskar, an Indian Hindi-language daily newspaper.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Indian-American COVID19 Researchers Face Fraud Charges

Indian-American Operator Charged With Fraud By US Federal Prosecutors

Lying Indian Media Caught Red Handed

India's Firehose of Falsehoods

Padlocked Grave Story Confirms Yet Again India's Status as the Hub of Fake News

H1-B Visa Abuse By Indian-American Body Shops

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Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Sharif's and Trump's Strikingly Similar Narratives

President of the United States Donald John Trump and Pakistan's former prime minister Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif are both under investigation by law enforcement agencies in their respective countries. Both men allege that they are victims of conspiracies against them by the "Criminal Deep State", better known as "the establishment" in Pakistan. The two men have accused the investigators, prosecutors and the judges of being biased against them. Their narratives are strikingly similar. Sharif and Trump have polarized and divided their nations by asking the voters to stand by them and to reject what they describe as a political "witch hunt". Both have succeeded in maintaining the support of the vast majority of their party legislators so far.

Donald Trump and Nawaz Sharif

Attacking Investigators:

Donald Trump has denounced the FBI teams working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Russia Collusion as "partisan Democrats". He has demanded that the FBI be investigated for "spying" on his 2016 presidential campaign. He has called the entire investigation a "witch hunt" by "criminal deep state" actors in the law enforcement and intelligence communities. He has described the FBI raid of his lawyer Michael Cohen's office as a "break-in".

Trump's Republican supporters in the House of Representatives of US Congress have made an unprecedented demand to see documents related to the FBI investigation of the President.

Like Trump, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif too has attacked the JIT (Joint Investigative Team) set up the Pakistan Supreme Court as being biased against him. Like Trump, Sharif has denounced the entire process of money laundering investigation against him as a "conspiracy" by the "establishment" (Deep State).

Nawaz Sharif's PMLN supporters have so far stood with their leader.

Distrust in Judiciary:

President Trump has repeatedly and viciously attacked judges who have issued orders unfavorable to him. Even before he was elected, candidate Trump accused a US-born judge with a Mexican last name of being biased him because  "he is Mexican and I'm building a wall".

Like Trump, Nawaz Sharif has accused his country's Supreme Court judges of acting against him on behalf of the "establishment" (the Deep State).

Politicizing Legal Processes: 

Both Trump and Sharif have used the legal accountability they face to rally political support for themselves. By arguing that they both face political witch hunt for their policies and not their alleged conduct, they have fired up their supporters and polarized their nations.  Both have delegitimized the institutions of law and justice in their attempts to beat the law enforcement agencies and the justice system in their respective countries.

Attempts by Trump's and Sharif to politicize legal proceedings against them are causing deep divisions in both the United States and Pakistan. These divisions don't augur well for the countries and the future of their institutions. They pose a threat to law and order and national security.

Lying to Law Enforcement:

While the right to remain silent is guaranteed under the 5th amendment of the US constitution, lying to law enforcement officials is a felony that triggers charges of obstruction of justice. These charges can potentially result in serious jail time. While state laws may vary across jurisdictions, obstructing a federal investigation is a felony with a potential five year prison sentence. Some of Trump's aides, including his former national security advisor General Michael Flynn, have already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice charges.  Trump's  team is trying to avoid the obstruction of justice charges against the President.

Similarly, there are Articles 62 and 63 of the Pakistan constitution that require that the public office holders be honest. While one may question the specific meanings of the words "sadiq" and "ameen" written in the constitution,  it is ridiculous to argue that deliberate lying by the highest officials of the country go unpunished.  In answers to questions by law enforcement regarding the sources of funds for buying London properties owned by the Sharif family, Mr. Sharif's multiple different conflicting explanations to the parliament, law enforcement and the people constitute a  big white lie.

Foreign Residency (Iqama):

Mr. Nawaz Sharif says he has been disqualified by the Supreme Court for Iqama (foreign residency), not Panama (money laundering). What he doesn't acknowledge is that Iqma facilitates Panama. Nor does he fully explain the source of funds used by his children to buy properties in London at the time they were too young to have their own legitimate incomes to afford to buy the properties.

Assets held by people in offshore tax havens are tracked by their country of residence, not by their citizenship, under OECD sponsored Agreement On Exchange of Information on Tax Matters. Pakistan is a signatory of this international agreement.  When Pakistan seeks information from another country under this agreement,  the nation's FBR gets only the information on asset holders who have declared Pakistan as their country of residence. Information on those Pakistanis who claim residency (iqama) in another country is not shared with Pakistani government. This loophole allows many Pakistani asset holders with iqamas in other countries to hide their assets. Many of Pakistan's top politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen hold residency visas in the Middle East, Europe and North America.

Money Laundering:

Money laundering is a very serious problem resulting in the illicit outflow of trillions of dollars from the poor to the rich countries, according to data compiled by Washington-based Global Financial Integrity.   Bloomberg has reported that Pakistanis alone own as much as $150 billion worth of undeclared assets offshore.

There's a direct relationship between investment and GDP. Flight of capital reduces domestic investment and depresses economic growth in poor countries. Lower tax revenues also impact spending on education, health care and infrastructure, resulting in poor socioeconomic indicators.

A recent report by the British National Crime Agency (NCA) has identified Pakistan as one of the top three source countries for money laundering to the United Kingdom where Nawaz Sharif's family owns expensive real estate. Both the UK NCA report and Panama papers show that the politicians and their family members are the biggest culprits in money laundering.

President vs Prime Minister:

Presidents as heads of state in most countries avoid prosecution while in office. Prime Ministers as heads of government do not enjoy the same immunity.

The US president is both the head of state and the head of government. There is no precedent of any US president being indicted while in office. The closest that a prosecutor ever came to indicting a president was in 1974 when President Richard Nixon was named an "un-indicted co-conspirator" in Watergate.  President Nixon resigned when he saw that the US Congress was ready to impeach him. Later, President Gerald Ford pardoned President Nixon, sparing him the humiliation of indictment and-or conviction.

In Pakistan, the President does enjoy immunity from prosecution while in office. The Prime Minister does not.

Summary:

Faced with serious charges against them, US President Donald Trump and Pakistan's ex premier Nawaz Sharif are attacking investigators, prosectors and judges in their respective countries. Both are politicizing the legal processes and delegitimizing institutions of democracy in the United States and Pakistan. Their narratives are strikingly similar. They are  polarizing their people and dividing their societies.  These divisions don't augur well for the countries and their institutions.

Here's a discussion on the subject:

https://youtu.be/5qfDYZgEX8U




Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

UK Names Pakistan Among Top Sources of Money Laundering

Did Musharraf Steal Pakistani People's Money?

Pakistan Economy Hobbled By Underinvestment

Raymond Baker on Corruption in Pakistan

Nawaz Sharif Disqualified

Culture of Corruption in Pakistan

US Investigating Microsoft Bribery in Pakistan

Zardari's Corruption Probe in Switzerland

Politics of Patronage in Pakistan

Why is PIA Losing Money Amid Pakistan Aviation Boom?

Comey Testimony; SCO Summit; British Elections; Qatar Crisis

What are the key takeaways from fired FBI Director James Comey testimony to the Senate about his interactions with President Trump? Will this testimony help or hurt President Trump? Will it lead to charges by Special Counsel Robert Mueller against Mr. Trump for perjury or obstruction of justice? Can the President be indicted? Will the President be impeached by Republican Congress?

What does the membership of Pakistan and India in Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) mean? Is it a confirmation that India has failed in its attempts to isolate Pakistan? Will SCO leaders help defuse tensions in South Asia?

What caused the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations led by Saudi Arabia to isolate and blockade Qatar? What is the US position on the situation? How will it affect American troops and CentCom regional HQ located in Qatar? How will this affect Iran and the Gulf? Is there a risk that Pakistan will be sucked into this crisis?

Why did British PM Theresa May misjudge the public mood when she called early parliamentary elections? Will the outcome with reduced Tory representation hurt Brexit negotiations with the European Union? How many British Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis got elected to the British parliament this time? Could they with their humble backgrounds have had similar success in their countries of origin?

Viewpoint From Overseas host Faraz Darvesh discusses these questions with panelists Misbah Azam and Riaz Haq (www.riazhaq.com)


https://youtu.be/KQV-flkfzBs





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India's Jadhav ICJ Case; Terror in Balochistan; Trump's Firing of FBI Director Comey

Why has India taken its complaint against Pakistan to International Court of Justice? Will this Indian action internationalize Kulbhushan Jadhav case? What are the risks for India? Can Pakistan use this opportunity to highlight India's use of proxies to commit acts of terror in Pakistan? Will Pakistan accept ICJ's jurisdiction in this matter?

Why did the Taliban and/or ISIS and/or LeJ target Maulana Ghafoor Haideri, a top leader of the right-wing Islamist party led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman? Are they unhappy with the Jamiat Ulema e Islam (JUI) known to be sympathetic to militant groups? Why have been attacking JUI and JI leaders? What do they hope to accomplish by this latest attack?

Why did President Donald Trump fire FBI Director James Comey? Is it really because of his mishandling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation? Or is it an attempt by the Trump administration to impede FBI's ongoing probe of alleged collusion of the Trump campaign with the Russians? Will it backfire on Mr. Trump? What are the chances that the US Congress will move to impeach President Trump?

Viewpoint From Overseas host Faraz Darvesh discusses these questions with panelists Misbah Azam and Riaz Haq (www.riazhaq.com)

https://youtu.be/-vv5s-DoEvg





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FBI Entrapping Young Muslims in Phony Terror Plots?

The FBI has intensified its pursuit of "home-grown" terrorists, allegedly foiling scores of plots around the United States since 9/11 terrorist attacks in America. The question now being increasingly asked is: Would there be many such terror plots to foil without government informants used to create them?

It is believed that foreign-born nationals are easy to recruit as FBI's confidential informants (CIs). If they get reported for any reason by any one and found to have any immigration issues, the police can threaten them with deportation. "You become a CI and you won't be deported, and you might even get paid tens of thousands of dollars if you help catch terrorists", they are told. It's a method the police in the United States have used for decades, according to a piece by Lorraine Adams and Ayesha Nasir published by London's Guardian newspaper.

Targeting of mosques by FBI informants has become quite common in New York and elsewhere in America since the weakening of court protections like the 1985 Handschu v Special Services Division decree that prohibited unfettered police monitoring of religious or political groups. In 2002, when NYPD's Adam Cohen was revamping the intelligence division, the police department sought a weakening of the Handschu decree from federal judge Charles S. Haight Jr who originally issued it, paving the way for the surveillance of Muslims. They won it in 2003.

In the Guardian story, Lorrain Adams and Ayesha Nasir discuss the case of Matin Siraj, a Pakistani-American convicted of terror in 2004. The FBI informant in the case, an Egyptian nuclear engineer named Osama Eldawoody, had been drawn in because he'd run a number of failed businesses out of his apartment, prompting neighbours to call police. The government paid Eldawoody's expenses, as well as $94,000 for his work as an informant on the case. Here's an excerpt from it:

The undercover officer in Siraj's case was a native of Bangladesh who used the pseudonym Kamil Pasha. "He's recruited in the classic NYPD way," Stolar says. "They troll the police academy to find someone who fits the targeted group. They started doing this with the Black Panther party back in the 60s. So they get someone who's, number one, young and number two, not known on the street. And they say. 'We promise you a gold shield, a detective's shield, if you do this.'"

The cop and the CI (Eldawoody) had no knowledge of each other. In July 2003 they began visiting the bookstore where Siraj was working. Eldawoody, 50 at the time, was old enough to be Siraj's father; Pasha, at 23, was more of a buddy. In 72 visits with Siraj, he was able to cull what the jury considered "radical statements", such as Siraj praising Osama Bin Laden as "a talented brother and a great planner".

None of Pasha and Siraj's conversations were tape-recorded and Eldawoody only began recording their encounters after he'd been meeting with Siraj for nine months. It's hard, therefore, to gauge what role the two men played in the conversation about the planned bomb attack.

In April 2004 the images of torture from Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad surfaced. When Siraj saw the image of the hooded Iraqi prisoner, attached to wires, standing on a box, he became hysterical. "Turn it off, Mommy! Turn it off," Siraj shrieked at her. Trial testimony showed that Eldawoody gave him photographs of a Muslim girl being raped by a dog. He is soon discussing the placement of the bomb with Siraj and his co-defendant, a 21-year-old schizophrenic Egyptian who turned state's evidence in the case. Siraj, in this recording, says, "No killing. Only economic problems." He explains: "If somebody dies, then the blame will come on me. Allah doesn't see those situations as accidents." In earlier audio recordings, however, he has said, "I want at least 1,000 to 2,000 to die in one day."

Recently, the FBI arrested the 19-year-old Somali-American Osman Mohamud in Oregon minutes before the annual holiday tree-lighting in Portland's downtown Pioneer Courthouse Square. This case is similar to other recent cases targeting young impressionable Muslim men by undercover F.B.I. agents or paid informers playing the role of terrorists and, as in this case, suggesting terror plots, selecting targets, and supplying fake explosives.

For those who believe that the young Muslims targeted by the FBI for entrapment are pre-disposed to committing violence and therefore fundamentaly different from other law-abiding citizens, I would respectfully suggest a quick review of the findings of Milgram experiements conducted at Yale University in the 1960s that showed how good, honest and decent people can be manipulated by authority figures to do terrible things that they would not ordinarily imagine doing.

As Stanley Milgram also found, there are some exceptions, however, to obedience to authority to inflict harm. When a minority of people are suficiently suspicious of such manipulation by overzealous FBI informants as was the case with an FBI informer in Southern California's Orange County, they refuse to cooperate. Recently, an FBI informant Craig Monteilh sent to infiltrate a California mosque was issued a restraining order after scaring Muslim worshippers with demands for jihad against Americ. He was known to members of the Irvine Islamic Center as Farouk al-Aziz, an apparently devout and at times over-zealous Muslim. But when he began speaking of jihad and plans to blow up, he was reported to the police by community members, according to a report in the Daily Mail. Monteilh, a petty criminal with forgery convictions, claims he received $177,000 tax free in 15 months for his work as an FBI informant.

Here's an RTV video clip on the case of Farooq Ahmed, a Pakistani-American arrested on terror charges in Virginia:



Here are the key points in the above video:

1. It talks about "the Newark Four". These are 4 poor African-American Muslims with neither passports nor driving licenses who had absolutely no capability to commit the crimes they were alleged of and convicted of. The FBI informant Shahid Husain, a Pakistani immigrant, was reportedly paid $100,000 by the FBI for entrapping them. Shahid Husain then became the key prosecution witness in their trial.

2. The FBI agents provided these men fake explosives and a fake Stinger missile and encouraged them to use these on targets selected by them. The 4 were promised cash and cars in exchange by the FBI.

3. It questions whether there would be any of these alleged "terrorists plots" to foil without government informants creating them by using informants.

4. Former FBI agent James Weddick argues that, instead of actively going after the real terrorists who are still out there, FBI is wasting its resources by relying on individuals to make up crime.

6. The reporter in the video says that the kind of entrapment tactics being used by the FBI would be unacceptable any where in Europe.

5. An attorney Steve Dowds shows a big 10 ft wide wall of names of people, mostly Muslims, entrapped by FBI and accuses it of "planting ideology" and providing the details of plots and resources to them before grabbing them and calling them "homegrown" terrorists".

A study by New York University's Center on Law and Security, which tracks terrorism cases, found that of 156 prosecutions in what it identified as the most significant 50 cases since Sept 2001, informers were relied on in 97 of them, or 62 percent. In the current environment of fear of Islamic terrorism in the United States, the entrapment defense has often been raised in jury trials, but it has not so far been successful in producing any acquittal in a post-Sept. 11 terrorism trial, the study found.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Early Anthrax Probe of Pakistani-Americans

Inside the Mind of Times Square Bomber

Home-grown Terror Plots Seen as FBI Entrapment

Milgram's Experiments on Obedience to Authority