SpaceX disables Starlink antennas at alleged scam centers in Myanmar
In the civil war country of Myanmar, countless people are being held and forced to extort money online. Now SpaceX has also taken action against it.
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The space company SpaceX has, according to its statement, disabled more than 2500 Starlink antennas in the vicinity of scam centers in Myanmar. This was made public by Lauren Dreyer on the microblogging service X; she is responsible for business operations at Starlink. The manager speaks of one of the “rare cases” in which SpaceX has identified a violation of laws, which is why they have taken “appropriate action.” The move was made public, according to NBC News, shortly after a major operation by the Myanmar military, during which dozens of Starlink terminals were seized and almost 2200 people were arrested.
In Myanmar, the army staged a coup at the beginning of 2021 and ousted the democratically elected de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Promised new elections were never held, and the country has since been sinking deeper into chaos and violence. The ruling military is trying to suppress all resistance, but various rebel groups are fighting the rulers with varying degrees of success across the country. Under these circumstances, criminal organizations have established large-scale fraud operations in some areas, in which tens or possibly even hundreds of thousands are forced to contact people worldwide via the internet and defraud them using various schemes.
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Only after massive international pressure have the various warring parties in the country begun to act, sometimes jointly, against the criminal gangs, NBC News further writes. In large-scale operations at the beginning of the year, thousands of people were freed, as Tagesschau reported at the time. According to the US report, SpaceX's action was preceded by indications that the criminals were extensively using Starlink satellite internet for the scams. Photos show rooftops with dozens of the necessary antennas. Whether the measure will significantly disrupt the criminals remains to be seen.
Elon Musk's SpaceX has been building Starlink since 2019, with almost 9000 active satellites now providing high-speed internet connections on all continents. In the future, 30,000 satellites are reportedly intended to connect regions where conventional technology is not economically viable. However, the comparatively fast satellite internet connections, which can be used independently of traditional cable networks, are repeatedly used by criminals. A year ago, Indian police seized smuggled drugs worth several billion US dollars near remote islands and requested information from SpaceX about also seized Starlink technology, which was used by the criminals.
(mho)
