India’s Digital Dream, Hacked

Natalie Obiko Pearson, Suparna Sharma | Bloomberg | Dec 05, 2025

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Then, one day, an acquaintance of his father’s said he could place Chetan in a job in Cambodia that would pay $700 to $800 a month. But the family would have to front $4,500 in fees to get him there. Desperate, they took out loans. In June 2024, Chetan flew to Siem Reap with a letter assuring him of a managerial job. Upon arrival, he was driven to a five-story building in Poipet, a city on the Cambodia-Thai border, where his passport was taken and he was handed a three-page script to memorize. His new job was to manage “Line 1” of a scam operation, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week.

Each day, an automated system would dial for Chetan the numbers of about 100 Indians and play a prerecorded message: “To know more about the status of your undelivered FedEx package, press 1.”

When someone answered, Chetan, posing as FedEx employee Rajkumar Rao, said a parcel linked to their Aadhaar card, containing drugs, had been intercepted by customs and was now in police custody. Then he forwarded the call to “Line 2,” a room replicating an Indian police station, complete with Mahatma Gandhi’s portrait, the buzz of walkie-talkies and a Pakistani man in uniform who placed the person under digital arrest. “Line 3” was manned by someone posing as a finance official who directed the victims to transfer their money to India’s central bank. “Line 4” worked in the background, arranging bank accounts and overseeing transfers and withdrawals.

Chetan’s center, run by a Chinese boss, was staffed by people from India, Cambodia, Nepal and Pakistan. When Chetan botched a call, he was forced to stand for 24 hours or write the script 50 times. For every successful scam, he received a 1% to 2% commission.

The Price of Remission

David Armstrong | ProPublica | May 08, 2025

It had been three decades since a new therapy for multiple myeloma had been approved, and there was a buzz among the oncologists gathered in Miami Beach for the conference. So many doctors crowded into the room for the presentation that the fire marshal had to intervene several times to clear exit ways. Word had already spread among multiple myeloma specialists about Jimmy. Now, the assembled doctors wanted to know whether it had been a fluke or a discovery that would fundamentally change how they practiced.

Singhal was tasked with presenting the data. It was a big stage for the 32-year-old doctor, who had only been practicing in the U.S. for two years.

The 89 patients in the study were high-risk cases who had undergone prior treatment. They were patients who, like Ira, had run out of options. Now, after thalidomide treatment, one-third had declines in myeloma activity.

Those were stunning numbers, unlike anything seen before in the treatment of multiple myeloma. When Singhal finished, the room erupted in applause.