AI‑Generated Fan Mail Leads Author to a Scam Farm in the Philippines
A novelist’s attempt to answer a fake “Berlin Book Club” offer exposed the dark world of AI‑powered scam farms in Southeast Asia.
Fan mail that isn’t fan mail
Every day the novelist receives multi‑paragraph emails from “readers” in cities such as Barcelona, Frankfurt, Chicago and Warsaw. Names like Bella Monroe, Thalina Rose and Tricia Claxton appear, some signing off with “warm chaos”. The messages praise the “deadpan genius” of his novels or the “moral courage” of his nonfiction, but all are fabricated attempts to extract money by promising promotion at city‑wide book clubs.
AI gives scammers a literary edge
In the era of generative AI, these scams have become highly personalized. The AI‑assisted emails often bypass spam filters and even reference specific details from the author’s books, convincing the writer that a real person has read his entire oeuvre. Last year Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to authors whose works were used to train its Claude model, and a group of publishers sued Google for similar infringements involving Gemini.
When a fake “Ottessa Moshfegh” writes back
Among the bogus messages was one purporting to come from Booker‑shortlisted author Ottessa Moshfegh. The scammer discussed a new novel “preoccupied with interior life” and directed the writer to her Amazon page. Other authors have reported similar impersonations of Donna Tartt and Sally Rooney, highlighting how AI can harvest celebrated writers’ styles to create ghost versions that haunt peers’ inboxes.
The Berlin Book Club ruse
Instead of merely reporting the email, the author decided to test the scam. He agreed that he needed help reaching new audiences and was willing to pay for the founder of the Berlin Book Club’s connections. After days of negotiating payment—CashApp, bank transfer, then finally “hard cash”—the scammer supplied a physical address in the Philippines.
Google Maps showed a rural two‑lane road lined with palm trees, a junk shop, an evangelical church and a large building behind high white walls. The address was unusual for a Berlin‑based book club, prompting further suspicion.
Scam farms in Southeast Asia
The Philippines, along with Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, hosts organized‑crime “scam farms”. A raid in Bamban north of Manila freed nearly 700 people forced to work as scammers in a hybrid call‑centre/prison facility. Workers came from the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia and Rwanda, often trafficked and deprived of documentation. The bosses lived in luxury, with swimming pools, while other compounds featured brothels, karaoke suites and even torture rooms.
These operations are run largely by Chinese crime syndicates and generate billions of dollars. Scammers are equipped with the latest technology, including face‑masking apps for video calls, and focus on “pig‑butchering” romance scams that funnel victims into fake cryptocurrency investments. A seized Cambodian compound resembled a TV studio, complete with costumes, wigs and sets replicating a Brazilian police station and a Vietnamese bank.
Reporting the scheme
The author did not send cash; instead he forwarded the details to the Philippines’ cybercrime agency. Winston Casio, spokesman for the presidential anti‑organized crime commission, warned that the criminals’ “financial capability to corrupt just about anybody in public office” hampers enforcement. The Bamban raid revealed that the compound was run by local mayor Alice Guo, underscoring the depth of corruption.
What the writer learned
While the fantasy of unmasking a villain remained just that, the experience gave the author a clearer view of the people behind the fake names and upbeat tones. Behind each polished email sits a frightened individual in a sound‑insulated booth, surrounded by dozens of phones, while a manager with a taser watches from the doorway.
In the meantime, AI companies appear unlikely to curb the criminal misuse of their tools, as the illicit profits continue to make them “fantastically rich”.
