Introduction

In recent months, press reports have emerged about individuals in multiple countries falling victim to extortion and fraud schemes enabled by often highly rated lending apps downloaded from Google’s Play Store. Last week, Diana Baptista and Avi Asher-Schapiro, journalists at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, told the story of how a man fell prey to one of these apps operating in Mexico. In this podcast episode, Baptista describes the man's experience, the broader phenomenon and the surrounding context.