Inside the War on Southeast Asia's Industrial Scam Economy with Rafael Frankel

**Rafael Frankel** (0:00)
I think that people underestimate the criminals that are the drivers of the scams. Mostly what we're talking about at this point is extremely well-financed, highly sophisticated transnational criminal networks that have turnover in the billions, tens of billions of dollars, and have the finances, the technological know-how, the sophistication to really be trying to scam people 24-7, 365 days a year. That's a tough adversary to be up against.

**Bernard Leong** (0:34)
Welcome to Analyse Podcast, the premier podcast dedicated to dissecting the powers of business, technology and media globally. I'm Bernard Leong, and today we are examining how Southeast Asia's scam economy have shifted from opportunistic fraud into industrialized cross-border enterprise, complete with scam as a service kits and sanction conglomerates like the Prince Group. And why defeating it now takes platforms, banks, telcos and governments moving together.
With me today, Dr. Rafael Frankel, the newly appointed head of public policy for Asia Pacific and Meta, a 25-year veteran in the region as a journalist, academic and policy leader, will unpack where the fight stands as of today and where he's seeing this heading. So, Rafael, welcome to the show.

**Rafael Frankel** (1:19)
Thanks, Bernard. I'm really happy to be here.

**Bernard Leong** (1:20)
Yes. And so I want to first kick off the conversation with your background, your origin story. Sure. My origin story, yeah. You spent years as a foreign correspondent I did. in Bangkok and Jerusalem Yeah. before moving into tech policy. So what instinct from chasing stories did you carry into now fighting scam networks?

**Rafael Frankel** (1:42)
Oh, boy.
Searching for the truth and like ground reality on what's going on, I think is a pretty strong through line from those two things. And I just think understanding what's like really going on on the ground, the local environment, how people are using technology and interacting with each other, how the politics comes into play. I mean, all of that is highly transferable to the work we're doing now to fight scams.

**Bernard Leong** (2:09)
And from the different roles you have undertaken over these past few years, what are the lessons on your career journey that you can share with my audience?

**Rafael Frankel** (2:20)
I love the way Steve Jobs put it at the Stanford Commencement Address. You can only connect the dots going backwards.
But having said that, I think one thing that I really relied on over the years is just my gut instinct and kind of what I was feeling deep down inside about when there were certain career opportunities and whether to seize them and the willingness to take risks, to move to different parts of the world, to try new things, to put yourself in uncomfortable situations, and always be ready for change because it could come any second. And I think that if you put yourself in that mindset and you're always looking for growth and where the trend lines are going to, then you can get yourself into some pretty interesting situations and a fun career, and a highly varied one.

**Bernard Leong** (3:12)
Yeah. So, you have now been appointed as Meta's head of public policy for all of Asia Pacific.
What drew you to this role at the current moment?

**Rafael Frankel** (3:23)
Oh, I can scarcely think of a better role to have at this current moment. You know, it's a moment where politics and technology, social development, economic development are all intersecting.
And they're all intersecting here in the Asia Pacific, which is in the clear growth region of the world, both in terms of population, economy, in many ways, technology, in the realm that I work in in public policy very much as well. We're talking about scams today, but it's not just true about scams. It's also true about AI and how people are using digital platforms, not just ours. And so, when you put all those things together, you're the kind of person that I am, where I'm interested in all those things, and the policy and political environment that underlines the technological development, then it just becomes a really fascinating place to work. And I'm always up for a really good challenge. It's very hard, very challenging, but to me, the intellectual simulation is a positive.

**Bernard Leong** (4:31)
And you're also in a pretty complex market, right? Seeing policy across very diverse set of markets. Think of like, say, from India to Japan, Australia to the Philippines. It can be developing, emerging, or even in the frontier. How does that diversity shape how you think about the challenges that we're going to discuss today?

**Rafael Frankel** (4:50)
You have to think about the challenges from different points of view and the different people that are experiencing them because they're going to come at these issues from different places, different levels of knowledge, different cultural experiences, different vulnerabilities and different strengths.