Agit Nagpal (Partner, Aetha Consulting), John Laughlin and Thomas Pickett

Can Telcos Really Stop Scammers?  The fight against foreign criminal gangs

TelSoc has pleasure in announcing its next online webinar on Wednesday, 24 September 2025, from 5.00 p.m. with Agit Nagpal, Partner of Aetha Consulting, and his team, John Laughlin and Thomas Pickett.  They will share with us insights gained from their work in the telecom sector on scams and scammers in Asia and lessons for Australia.  

Scam operations in Southeast Asia have evolved into highly organised criminal enterprises, often run from guarded “scam compounds” where many workers are themselves victims of employment scams and trafficking. From these centres, gangs orchestrate sophisticated “pig butchering” schemes, building the trust of victims before luring them into fake investment opportunities. Annual revenues are estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, giving these networks the resources to corrupt officials and resist law enforcement action. This session will explore the measures implemented by governments, telecoms regulators and operators to counter these scammers, and the challenges posed by complex, cross-border scam networks.

As with all TelSoc lunchtime events, the presentation will be followed by a Q&A session in which TelSoc members and industry colleagues will be able to raise questions and issues – and get some answers. Agit and his team have had considerable experience with scamming activity and prevention and will be able to provide insightful analysis about how various scams work and how they can be and have been disrupted. It is a topic that affects us all, so the presentation and the Q&A session will be well worth your while.

Note: The presentation begins at 5.00 pm AEST, not at the usual lunchtime.

Registration process:

1. Click on the website telsoc.org/events and select this event. Click the "Book a Seat" button and click on "Book" in the pop-up window.
2. If you are a TelSoc financial member, you will be asked to login, if you are not already. After you login, your seat will be booked and you will receive a confirmatory email.
3. If you are not a current financial member, you will be invited to join by creating a new account.  Please consider doing so.  The objectives of TelSoc and benefits of joining are set out at Membership | Telsoc.
4. If you are not a financial member and do not wish to join right now, or if you are having any difficulty registering, please send your name and email contact details to leith.campbell@telsoc.org and he will register you manually – provided he hears from you before 5 pm on 23 September 2025.