Myanmar: Starlink under investigations by US Congress committee over its alleged involvement in supplying internet access to cyber scam centres
"US Congress committee investigating Musk-owned Starlink over Myanmar scam centres", 14 October 2025
A powerful bipartisan committee in the US Congress says it has begun an investigation into the involvement of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite business in providing internet access to Myanmar scam centres, blamed for swindling billions from victims across the world.
The move comes as it was revealed that large numbers of Starlink dishes began appearing on scam-centre roofs in Myanmar around the time of a crackdown in February that was supposed to eradicate the centres, according to a investigation by Agence France-Presse.
Starlink has come from nowhere to become the war-torn country’s biggest internet provider in three months, data from the APNIC Asian regional internet registry shows.
SpaceX, Starlink’s owner, has not replied ...
The US Congress joint economic committee told the news agency it began an investigation in July into Starlink’s involvement with the scam centres. The committee has the power to make Musk testify before it…
Senator Maggie Hassan, the leading Democrat on the US congressional committee, has called on Musk to block the Starlink service to the fraud factories.
“While most people have probably noticed the increasing number of scam texts, calls and emails, they may not know that transnational criminals halfway across the world may be perpetrating these scams by using Starlink internet access,” she said.
The senator wrote to Musk in July demanding answers to 11 questions about Starlink’s role.
Former California prosecutor Erin West, who now heads the Operation Shamrock group campaigning against the centres, said: “It is abhorrent that an American company is enabling this to happen.”
While still a cybercrime prosecutor, she warned Starlink … that the mostly Chinese crime syndicates that run the centres were using its technology, but received no reply…
On the Thailand-Myanmar border, new buildings have been springing up inside the heavily guarded compounds around Myawaddy at a fast pace, with some festooned with Starlink receivers, satellite images and AFP drone footage show…