Scamlands - Inside The Asian Empire Of Fraud That Preys On The World - Release Date October 2025

Publication Details

• Publication Date: October 2025

• ISBN: 9780670095544

• Category: Non-fiction / Crime / Thriller & Mystery

• Format: Hardcover

• Binding: Hardback

• Pages: 336 pages

• Publisher: Viking

About the Book

Scamlands takes you into the heart of a shadowy empire where a scamster is born every minute. Investigative journalist Snigdha Poonam follows the vast networks of deception that stretch from small-town India to the globalized fraud factories of Southeast Asia, preying on unsuspecting victims across the Western world.

Beginning in the rural heartland of eastern India—where she herself grew up—and ending in a gleaming city by the South China Sea, Poonam uncovers an invisible world fueled by inequality, rapid technological change, and a deep erosion of trust. In this world, fraud is not just a crime—it is a way of life. It becomes a means of survival, a path to upward mobility, an act of rebellion, and a chilling disregard for the suffering of others.

Gripping and deeply reported, Scamlands explores how scams are reshaping economies and societies in Asia and beyond. It uses fraud as a powerful lens to examine a globalized world in flux—where technology connects us while also dividing us. The book offers startling insights into a social order where deception becomes both a strategy and an ideology.

This is the story of how corruption, far from being just an abuse of power, becomes a tool of agency and ingenuity—and what that means for all of us, in an increasingly interconnected and uncertain world.

About the Author

Snigdha Poonam is the acclaimed author of Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing the World, which won the Crossword Award for Non-fiction in 2018 and was longlisted for the PEN America Literary Awards in 2019.

For over fifteen years, her writing has explored the impact of global forces on everyday lives, often through intimate, character-driven reporting. Her work has appeared in Granta, Financial Times Weekend, Guardian Longreads, The New York Times, The Economist’s 1843 magazine, and Bloomberg Businessweek.

In 2023, she was awarded a MacDowell fellowship for creative non-fiction to complete Scamlands. Snigdha currently lives in Oxfordshire.