When Snigdha Poonam received a strange email from an organization seemingly interested in discussing a book she published seven years ago, she was intrigued, but apprehensive. As it turns out, her suspicions were well-founded. Poonam, after investigating, discovered she’d been the target of an author scam. Little did the grifter know, that Poonam has spent the last 10 years reporting on fraud. Game on!

This was undoubtedly a scam. Genuine book clubs don’t ask for money from authors. But who was behind it?

Had these individuals actually read my work, they would have wanted to stay away from me. I have spent the last 10 years reporting on transnational fraud. My first book, Dreamers, closed with a chapter on fake call centers in India; my second, Scamlands, traveled to other low-income countries in Asia to portray an invisible empire that thrives on inequality, technological change and the erosion of trust.

Along the way, I met and interviewed the scammers whose labor keeps this empire running. For some, fraud was a route to upward mobility; for others, an act of revenge against the privileged. Though I have formally emerged from this underworld, I can never delete a scam email without wanting to know more.