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"The fraudsters also registered nearly 100 phone numbers using false identities."

Is it really a WhatsApp scheme? I thought the purpose of phone numbers now is to tie them to an actual person.

you would think, but apparently anyone can now download an app called "talkatone" that gives you a free phone number to make calls and send texts with

In some countries you can still buy prepaid cards which don't required any registration etc. and can be used across the entire EU anonymously.

It would be nice if we had tracert for phones. So you can see the route through which someone calls and what platforms/orgs.

Intelligence agencies around the world have collectively spent many, many billions on trying to achieve exactly that.

Then again, full mandatory deanonymisation wouldn't be required to just let people unsubscribe from calls from numbers aren't "genuine" in some way. There's a middle ground before "block all unknown numbers" that still lets the doctor's office call me.

Where this is more enforced, it's not uncommon for criminals to get homeless or drug addicts to register phones using their identities.

Indeed, poverty engenders crime.

International financial crime would be international economic justice, if only the stolen funds went to poor individuals and not their slaveowners or corporate masters

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