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(NEW YORK) — Last July, a prosecutor in California sent a letter to Elon Musk’s SpaceX with an urgent message: The company’s internet satellite dishes are being used by criminal organizations in so-called “scam compounds” across Southeast Asia.

Starlink, which was developed by SpaceX in 2019, provides internet to remote locations, and the company’s satellite systems have been used in war-torn Ukraine, in hospitals in Gaza, and in areas affected by hurricanes.

But over the last several years, according to international officials and intergovernmental organizations, authorities have found Starlink satellite dishes being used in criminally run scam centers, where users perpetrate illegal online schemes to defraud people.

Anti-scam advocates like Erin West, the former deputy district attorney for Santa Clara County, California, have been increasingly calling on companies with links to scam centers to help them locate and dismantle the criminal groups that run scam compounds.

“The thing about Starlink is, it is a satellite, it’s covering specific areas,” said West, who sent the letter to Starlink. “And when we can point out that some of those locations are known scam centers, then I want Starlink to turn off the service.”

West and the Santa Clara DA’s office told ABC News that SpaceX never responded to their letter.

ABC News has previously reported on the growing rise of scam compounds in Southeast Asia, Africa and South America, where hundreds of thousands of people are reported to be trafficked and forced to target people in the U.S. and Europe.

According to the FBI, victims of cryptocurrency scams linked to the compounds reported $3.9 billion in estimated losses in 2023.

A report published by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime in October found that Chinese organized crime groups have found ways around “existing security protocols in order to access the remote high-speed internet connectivity made possible” by Starlink’s technology.

“Several recent incidents relating to the use of false base stations and Starlink satellite dishes have been reported by law enforcement authorities in Mekong countries over past years,” the report said.

SpaceX representatives did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

According to officials and the UNODC, online vendors are selling Starlink devices to cyber-enabled fraud operations in remote areas where scam compounds are located.

“In the future, Starlink will reach a transmission capacity of 200G! Come and enjoy a set of Starlink equipment exclusive to you,” said an advertisement posted last week on a Telegram chat that ABC News reviewed.

Benedikt Hofmann, the Deputy Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific for UNODC, who reviewed the Telegram chat, said there are many vendors specifically advertising Starlink access as a “solution for online scam operators” on Telegram-based markets.

Anti-scam groups and intergovernmental organizations have been looking into the Telegram chats as part of their effort to locate and dismantle the scam compounds.

The use of Starlink satellite devices by criminal organizations was first reported by Wired.

Hofmann told ABC News that “Starlink is a growing concern.”

“We’ve seen increasing cases of devices being seized en route to Myanmar, usually coming from other parts of the region where they can be legally purchased,” Hofmann said. “There is a clear link to the scam industry.”

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(WASHINGTON) Hunter Biden may have his freedom, but the son of former President Joe Biden now finds himself mired in debt, without a permanent home, and the target of ongoing attacks from the current president, Donald Trump, and his allies on Capitol Hill, according to a court filing.

In court papers filed Wednesday, Hunter Biden asked a federal judge to dismiss his lawsuit against online provocateur Garrett Ziegler because he “does not have the financial resources to continue litigating this case.”

Amid lagging sales of his art and his memoir, the younger Biden remains “several million dollars” in debt after fighting multiple federal criminal cases, claiming in an affidavit that he only sold one painting for $36,000 since late 2023, after selling 27 paintings in the previous couple of years at an average price of nearly $55,000.

“Given the positive feedback and reviews of my artwork and memoir, I was expecting to obtain paid speaking engagements and paid appearances, but that has not happened,” Hunter Biden wrote Wednesday.

He said that his “lack of financial resources has been exacerbated by the fires in the Pacific Palisades in early January, which has rendered my rental house unlivable for an extended period of time and, like many others in that situation, I am having difficulty in finding a new permanent place to live.”

A person close to Hunter Biden told ABC News that his rental did not burn down, but that immense damage to the surrounding properties had limited his access to his residence.

The affidavit chronicles a series of hardships since his father’s departure from office. Weeks before Trump’s inauguration, then-President Biden pardoned his son shortly before two federal judges were scheduled to sentence him for a pair of criminal convictions in Delaware and California, for which he faced the possibility of substantial prison time.

Hunter Biden has acknowledged taking out millions of dollars in loans from Kevin Morris, a Hollywood attorney who largely bankrolled Hunter Biden’s legal defense over the past five years. In congressional testimony last year, Morris said he expected Hunter Biden to repay those loans beginning in 2025, though it was not clear from the affidavit whether those loan repayments have begun.

Hunter Biden and his legal team are evaluating whether to continue litigating a handful of other lawsuits he filed in recent years against purveyors of his infamous laptop on a “case by case basis,” Hunter Biden wrote in Wednesday’s filing. Ziegler did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

One of those suits targets Patrick Byrne, the founder of Overstock.com and an avid supporter of President Trump. Hunter Biden sued Byrne in late 2023 for defamation for falsely accused Hunter Biden of trying to bribe Iran while his father was president — a claim that Hunter Biden said has subjected him to “harassment, intimidation, and harm.” Byrne has fought the defamation claim in court.

The trail in the case has been repeatedly delayed amid a protracted dispute over depositions from Byrne and an FBI agent that has thrown a wrench into the proceedings.

Byrne’s attorneys claim in court papers that Byrne fled to Dubai after he was told by U.S. officials “that the Venezuelan government has a $25,000,000 bounty on his head,” and said he preferred a deposition over Zoom “out of concern for his personal safety.” The parties ultimately agreed to a remote deposition in December that was expected to span seven hours over the course of three days, though it was unclear from the court docket when exactly the deposition occurred.

In court filings as part of that case, Hunter Biden has echoed his claims of financial hardship. He claimed that because of Byrne’s defamatory statements, he has suffered “lost economic opportunities” to the tune of nearly half a million dollars, citing lost memoir sales, lost art sales, and lost speaking opportunities.

Hunter Biden’s legal team has also subpoenaed the FBI, demanding testimony and documents from an agent whom Byrne claimed on social media could corroborate Byrne’s allegations against the younger Biden. But the FBI has so far rebuffed those efforts, and on Monday the Justice Department filed a motion in federal court in Washington, D.C., urging a federal judge there to quash the subpoena.

Meanwhile, Hunter Biden remains squarely on the minds of Trump and his loyalists in Congress. As one of his first acts in office, Trump signed an executive order revoking security clearances for 51 former intelligence officials who signed a letter asserting that the emergence of data from Hunter Biden’s laptop in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election bore similarities to prior Russian misinformation operations.

During a heated Oval Office confrontation between Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week, Trump repeatedly invoked Hunter Biden’s name as part of a lengthy diatribe about the Russia investigation led by Robert Mueller:

And on Tuesday, two top Republican lawmakers invited IRS whistleblowers who revealed details of Hunter Biden’s tax filings as guests at Trump’s Joint Address to Congress.

The person close to Hunter Biden told ABC News that the former president’s son will continue pursuing his art career and plans to devote himself to initiatives meant to help people struggling with addiction. And despite the sentiments in his affidavit, Hunter Biden remains in “a good place to rebuild his life,” the person said.

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(CALIFORNIA) — A California man and his dog were rescued on Wednesday after spending the night trapped in a crushed pickup truck along a highway in the northern part of the state, according to the California Highway Patrol.

At approximately 10:03 a.m. Wednesday, a motorist traveling along Highway 89 — three miles north of Calpine, California — called 911 after passing by the wreckage, “but was unsure if anyone was in the vehicle,” the Sierra County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement Wednesday evening.

Since police were not certain of the condition of the driver, paramedics, the local fire department and California Highway Patrol accompanied a sheriff’s deputy to the scene, officials said.

Upon arrival, first responders found the pickup truck approximately “30 feet down the hillside along Highway 89,” the sheriff’s office said.

Inside the vehicle, authorities found “one single occupant and a dog,” the sheriff’s office said.

The driver told officials he “crashed the day before around 2 p.m. and had spent the night in the truck,” even admitting to officials that “he just wasn’t paying attention and went off the road,” according to highway patrol.

The Sierra County Fire Department contacted the U.S. Forest Service and Graeagle Fire for assistance in extracting the driver from the wreckage, the sheriff’s department said.

After an hour of “meticulous work,” the driver was removed from the vehicle and taken to the hospital with “moderate injuries,” the sheriff’s office said.

“It was a pleasure working with Sierra County Fire — Calpine in the successful extrication of a complicated situation. Wishing the patient a full and speedy recovery,” Graeagle Fire Department said in a statement on Wednesday.

The dog appeared to not have any injuries and is currently “being cared for by a friend of the driver,” the sheriff’s office said.

Upon investigation, authorities said they believe the driver had been trapped inside the car for neatly 22 hours before being discovered by the motorist.

The cause of the crash is currently being investigated by the California Highway Patrol.

After this situation, California Highway Patrol urged people to remember “the responsibility we all have to each other when operating these rolling hunks of metal,” the agency said in a statement.

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Minnesota has found MyPillow CEO and Trump ally Mike Lindell in contempt of court for failing to provide discovery and financial documents in the defamation case brought by voting machine company Smartmatic.

Smartmatic sued Lindell for defamation in 2022, alleging that he lied about the company’s role in the 2020 presidential election for his own financial gain.

In a filing on Thursday, Judge Jeffrey M. Bryan said Lindell failed to produce analytics data for his company’s website and financial records to show Lindell’s financial condition for the years 2022 and 2023.

“If Defendants do not comply, Smartmatic is invited to bring another motion for an order to show cause or to seek further relief,” Judge Bryan wrote.

Lindell told ABC News he was not aware of the judge’s order.

“We will not stop until we have paper ballots counted and we’re going to melt down all the voting machines and turn them into prison bars,” Lindell said.

Lindell was one of the leading promoters of false 2020 election fraud claims. He continues to spread false election claims including calling for the ban of voting machines.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said in his speech to a joint session of Congress that he’ll work to protect and support police. But his words set off a backlash that included a Democratic lawmaker accusing him of the “height of hypocrisy” and a former Capitol Police officer noting that Trump pardoned 1,500 people who attacked him and his colleagues during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Harry Dunn, a former Capitol Police Officer who risked his life to defend the Capitol Building as Trump’s supporters rioted in 2021, slammed Trump in a series of posts on the social media site Bluesky as the president was addressing Congress Tuesday night.

“Trump threatens public safety,” Dunn said in one post.

In an expletive-laced post, the 41-year-old Dunn, wrote in all capital letters, “YOU PARDONED OUR ATTACKERS.”

During his speech Tuesday night, Trump did not mention the insurrection, of which, according to the House Jan. 6 committee’s final report, he allegedly engaged in a criminally “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.

In his address, the president spoke about getting police officers nationwide “the support, protection and respect they so dearly deserve.”

“They have to get it. They have such a hard, dangerous job,” Trump said. “But we’re going to make it less dangerous. The problem is the bad guys don’t respect the law, but they’re starting to respect it, and they soon will respect it.”

In the first two months of 2025, at least 58 police officers have been shot in the line of duty, including eight who were killed, according to a report released on March 3 by the National Fraternal Order of Police. The report showed that the number of police shootings is down 11% from this time in 2024.

Among the officers killed this year are Virginia Beach Police Officers Cameron Girvin, 25, and Christopher Reese, 30, who authorities said were shot at point-blank range on Feb. 25 as they were already lying on the ground wounded and defenseless following a traffic stop. The suspected killer, who police said died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was identified as 42-year-old John McCoy III, a convicted felon.

Trump said that one of the first steps he has taken since returning to the White House is signing an executive order requiring a mandatory death penalty for anyone convicted of murdering a police officer.

“And tonight, I’m asking Congress to pass that policy into permanent law,” Trump said.

Trump cited the March 25, 2024, fatal shooting of New York Police Officer Jonathan Diller, who was gunned down while conducting a traffic stop in Queens — becoming the first NYPD officer killed in the line of duty in two years. The suspect, who was shot and wounded by Diller’s partner, was identified as 34-year-old Guy Rivera.

Rivera, who has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge, was previously arrested 21 times, according to police records. Also arrested in the fatal shooting, was 41-year-old Lindy Jones, who was in the car with Rivera at the time of the shooting. Jones pleaded not guilty to a charge of being a criminal possession of a weapon and possession of a defaced firearm. Jones had 14 prior arrests including attempted murder and robbery, and was out on bail in connection to a separate crime at the time of the shooting, police records indicate.

“We’re going to get these cold-blooded killers and repeat offenders off our streets. And we’re going to do it fast. Gotta stop it,” said Trump, who attended Diller’s wake.

Trump called on Congress to pass a new crime bill aimed at “getting tougher on repeat offenders while enhancing protections for America’s police officers so they can do their jobs without fear of their lives being totally destroyed.”

Following Trump’s speech, Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, posted a statement on social media accusing Trump of “the height of hypocrisy.”

“Trump talks a big game about standing with … the blue, yet on the first day of his administration he pardoned hundreds of cop-beaters who tried to steal an election on January 6, 2021,” Garcia wrote.

Rep. Judy Chu, D-California, who walked out of Trump’s speech with other Democrats, also took to social media, posting, “Trump insults the American people by saying, ‘let’s bring back law and order.’ Among his first acts as president? Pardoning 1500 violent felons involved in the January 6 attacks on our U.S. Capitol and democracy.”

Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla., cited the hundreds of FBI agents and Department of Justice employees who have lost their jobs in the Trump administration’s sweeping reduction in the federal workforce being overseen by billionaire Elon Musk and the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“Purging hundreds of FBI and DOJ agents who investigated the Jan 6 insurrection — career law enforcement officers, not political appointees — does not make us safer, more secure, or prosperous,” Frankel wrote on social media.

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(IDYLLWILD, Calif.) — Two hikers who were stranded for three days after falling down a snowy cliff were rescued on Monday near Idyllwild, California, the Riverside Sheriff Aviation Unit said in a statement Tuesday.

The climbers — one man and one woman — were traveling along the Tahquitz Mountain trail on March 1 when they suddenly plummeted approximately 800 feet down a snowy cliff, located about 8,900 feet above Idyllwild, California, according to officials.

The hikers called 911, stating they were “injured badly and needed help,” officials said. A helicopter was sent to rescue the two individuals, but due to 45 mph winds, rescuers failed in their attempt.

Helicopters from Cal Fire and the Orange County Fire Authority also attempted to hoist the victims out, but “all were unsuccessful due to low clouds and high winds.”

Authorities said volunteers from Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit were able to locate the male and female hikers on the ground that first night.

Then, on the second day, “several attempts” were again made, but helicopters were “unsuccessful due to mountain obscuration and high turbulence surface winds.” The hikers had to endure temperatures as low as 15 degrees Fahrenheit that night, accompanied by persistent snow, officials said.

Finally, on the third day, the “weather and wind calmed just enough” and the hikers were successfully hoisted out via helicopter, officials said. The man, “who was the most severely injured,” was rescued first and flown to Desert Regional Medical Center for treatment, followed by the woman, officials said.

Body camera video capturing the rescue shows the snowy conditions officials had to deal with while saving the two stranded individuals.

“Many thanks to all those ground crews that were involved as well as all the helicopter crews who were involved in the rescue,” the aviation unit said in a statement.

Along with the helicopters, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said on social media that over 20 mountain team rescuers hiked to save these injured victims, who “most definitely would have died from exposure to the elements.”

“This was a very long and coordinated effort with amazing partners and volunteers. Outstanding job by all,” Bianco said on social media.

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