Scamlands: An Attempt to Remind How Criminal Landscape Includes Society at Large

Crime is at a crossroads. As technology advances, scams evolve alongside it, and this is now a reality not just in India but across much of Asia. This rise has also prompted several awareness campaigns, particularly in mainstream media, aimed at alerting people to common frauds. One of the more popular recent campaigns featured Pankaj Tripathi in ‘Main Murkh Nahi Hoon’, which showcased different methods used by fraudsters. In these campaigns, however, the potential victim ultimately outsmarts the criminal intent. Scamlands, by contrast, documents many of the recent and commonly reported scams in the country, focusing on how these methods continue to succeed and how they implicate the wider social order.

While scams are neither new nor unusual in India, many have gained visibility due to sustained media attention. Cyber fraud losses amounted to Rs. 36.45 lakh, as reported on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) as of 28 February 2025. Snigdha Poonam’s Scamlands (Penguin) examines the finer details of several such widely reported frauds.

Covering scams across both urban and rural India, Poonam—best known for her earlier book Dreamers, which explored Jamtara’s call centre scams—systematically traces the patterns and methods used by fraudsters. From KBC-style lottery scams and life insurance fraud to dating-related scams and personal encounters with victims, she carefully outlines the processes, planning, and execution behind these schemes.

Examples such as “scammers stealing details of missing children from a police database to extort money from over 900 parents by promising information on their whereabouts”, or “over 200 couples in Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia district allegedly participating in fake marriages to access benefits under a state government mass marriage scheme”, illustrate how Poonam uses region-specific cases to explain the broader mechanics of scams and present them clearly to readers.

However, no crime or scam in India can be examined without acknowledging its intersection with social hierarchies and politics, a point that Poonam is careful to underscore throughout the book. “Flying into Tamil Nadu after Jharkhand, I saw how traditional status could grant one permission to commit fraud,” she writes in ‘Fool’s Gold in Kumbakonam’. She opens the chapter with a quote from a villager she encountered during her research: “It was a Brahmin’s plot, from beginning to end,” referring to the ‘Helicopter Brothers scam’ and illustrating how the fraud was embedded within entrenched social and political hierarchies.

Maintaining a consistently vivid narrative style, Poonam also reconstructs the step-by-step conversations and emotional manipulation used to deceive victims, making several chapters particularly engaging. Her choice to frame the book partly as a travelogue adds to its appeal, inviting readers to journey with her across regions and stories as she navigates the landscape of scams. These narrative choices ultimately serve a larger purpose: to expose the systems that enable such frauds by examining them in detail.

With Dreamers already setting a benchmark for the author, this book may feel underwhelming when viewed in direct comparison; however, on its own merits, it holds its ground. One notable element is the leaflet titled ‘Scamlands Bingo’, placed at the very beginning of the book. Designed with a black background and red boxes featuring commonly used scam phrases such as “Your Aadhaar needs to be updated immediately”, it effectively piques curiosity and works well as a marketing device. This is particularly striking given how relevant and alarming such scenarios remain, especially with Aadhaar–PAN linkage having become mandatory.

That said, the book is not without its limitations. Several chapters feel overly long, which may restrict its appeal to a mass readership. Even so, Scamlands succeeds in what it sets out to do: raising awareness, unpacking the layers beneath common frauds, and emphasising that focusing solely on individual criminals is misguided. Instead, it argues that scams should be understood as systemic issues rather than isolated acts.