Scamlands: Inside the Asian empire of fraud that preys on the world by Snigdha Poonam
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A gripping account of the people and forces behind the scams reshaping societies and economies in India, Asia and beyond, this book describes places where corruption is not just an abuse of power but also an expression of agency and of ingenuity. It uncovers what it means for the social order, in India and elsewhere, when deception becomes a way of life. When fraud triumphs over trust, none of us anywhere in the world will escape its armies of foot soldiers and scam lords. We may all become unwilling citizens of this dark empire.
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Description
Snigdha Poonam’s Scamlands takes you to parts of the world where a scamster is born every minute. Beginning from the rural heartland of eastern India, where she grew up and ending in a shining city by the South China Sea, Poonam follows the networks of deceit across an invisible empire that thrives on inequality, technological change and the erosion of trust. It is a world where fraud is at once a route to upward mobility, an act of revenge against the privileged and uncaring, and a blatant disregard for the pain of others.
About the Author
Snigdha Poonam is the author of Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing the World. It won 2018’s Crossword Award for nonfiction in India and was longlisted in 2019 for the PEN America Literary Awards. For fifteen years, her work has shown how major global phenomena shape human lives, often by focusing on a single person, group or event to reveal how transformative forces act on society.
Her work has been published in Granta, Financial Times Weekend, Guardian Longreads, New York Times Arts, The Economist’s 1843 magazine and Bloomberg’s Businessweek. In 2023, she received a MacDowell fellowship for creative nonfiction to finish SCAMLANDS. She lives in Oxfordshire.
Additional information
| Dimensions | 22 × 14 × 3 cm |
|---|---|
| Binding | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 978-0670095544 |
| Language | English |
| Pages | 344 |
| Publication date | 31 October 2025 |
| Publisher | Penguin Viking |
| Writer | Snigdha Poonam |



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