Starlink is poised to take over a major air traffic control communication contract

Starlink and a Human Trafficking Fraud in Myawaddy: Help Against the Burden of a Chirally-Training Scam Company

The plea for help arrived last summer. A Chinese human trafficking victim wrote in an email from within the Tai Chang scam compound, that he was in Myanmar and working for a fraud company. Like thousands of others in the region, they were promised legitimate work only to find themselves tricked into modern slavery and forced to scam people online for hours every day. Tai Chang is near the border with Thailand and has been linked to incidents of torture. They said that they were chatting with you secretly and that they were not safe. Despite the risk, their first request wasn’t to be rescued.

Tai Chang’s internet connection had recently been cut off from Thailand, the person wrote in the messages to anti-scam group GASO in June 2024. The criminals behind the operation were able to stay online despite the compound grinding to a halt. “Elon Musk’s Starlink is installed above all the buildings in the campus where we are now,” the individual wrote. The fraud work is running normally now. If the fraud network here is down, we can regain our freedom.”

Those messages soon landed on the desk of Erin West, then deputy district attorney for Santa Clara County, California. West is an advocate for victims of the so-called pig butchering and other types of criptocurrency scam and wrote to a lawyer at the company behind the high-speed Starlink satellite internet system. Starlink connections appeared to be helping criminals at Tai Chang to “scam Americans” and “fuel their internet needs,” West alleged at the end of July 2024. She offered to share more information to help the company in “disrupting the work of bad actors.”

The eight compounds, spread around the Myawaddy region of war-torn Myanmar, likely have installed multiple Starlink devices. Photos of Tai Chang reviewed by WIRED appear to show dozens of white Starlink satellite dishes on a single rooftop, while human rights watchdogs and other experts say that Starlink use at the scam compounds has increased in the past year.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is stepping up to the plate: Air Traffic Control Communications Problem in the 21st Century, and why Donald Trump hasn’t

There have been four commercial aircraft crashes globally in the last 11 weeks, as well as a handful of private plane crashes and several near misses. Hundreds of employees have been cut from the air traffic control system. The perception of a global aviation system that is coming apart at the seams despite being safer than ever before is something many people still do not understand.

Much of Musk’s wealth comes from government largesse. According to the Post, his companies have received $38 billion in government contracts over the years.

Starlink is poised to steal a multimillion-dollar government contract from a competitor, as evidenced by the fact that the company is owned by Elon Musk.

The FAA has email addresses for several SpaceX employees according to the Post. One SpaceX employee posted a photo of the team on X, with the statement, “Working to improve the safety of the national air space system.”

In recent weeks, a team from the parent company of Starlink was working within the FAA to help modernize its technology system. US Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said they were tasked with developing “a new, better, modern and safer system.”

This, of course, follows a pattern, in which Musk posts on X about something regarding the FAA and then seems to will it into existence. The billionaire called for the resignation of the FAA administrator after they fined SpaceX for not getting approval to change their rocket launches. After his repeated comments, Whitaker resigned on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Source: Starlink poised to take over $2.4 billion contract to overhaul air traffic control communication

Contributions to EVs and Public Transportation (with an Emphasis on Aviation, Electric Vehicles and Electric Power), edited by R.E. C. Seyfert et al

I cover EVs, public transportation and aviation and have been for over 10 years. His work has appeared in a couple newspapers.