Scamlands

by Snigdha Poonam, Mala Mangla (Narrator)

Snigdha Poonam’s Scamlands takes you to parts of the world where a scamster is born every minute. Beginning from the rural heartland of eastern India, where she grew up and ending in a shining city by the South China Sea, Poonam follows the networks of deceit across an invisible empire that thrives on inequality, technological change and the erosion of trust. It is a world where fraud is at once a route to upward mobility, an act of revenge against the privileged and uncaring, and a blatant disregard for the pain of others.A gripping account of the people and forces behind the scams reshaping societies and economies in India, Asia and beyond, this book describes places where corruption is not just an abuse of power but also an expression of agency and of ingenuity. It uncovers what it means for the social order, in India and elsewhere, when deception becomes a way of life. When fraud triumphs over trust, none of us anywhere in the world will escape its armies of foot soldiers and scam lords. We may all become unwilling citizens of this dark empire.

Audible Audio

Published February 24, 2026

About the author

Snigdha Poonam is a national affairs writer with The Hindustan Times in Delhi. Her work has appeared in Scroll, The Caravan, The Times of India, The New York Times, The Guardian, Granta, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and The Financial Times. Her article 'Lady Singham’s Mission Against Love' was runner-up in the Bodley Head / Financial Times Essay Prize, 2015. She won the 2017 Journalist of Change award of Bournemouth University for an investigation of student suicides that appeared on Huffington Post. Dreamers is her first book. It won 2018’s Crossword Book Award (Jury) for nonfiction and was longlisted for PEN America Literary Awards. Dreamers also featured in many best-books lists including The Financial Times’ and The Hindu’s.