Turkey fines Adidas $15,000 for pigskin shoes
The Muslim-majority country's advertising regulator slammed Adidas for describing its "Samba OG" trainers -- sported in recent years by models Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid -- as made from "real leather", without specifying it came from pigs.
In a ruling seen by AFP on Thursday, it said the use of materials "contrary to the religious sensibilities of the majority of society must be clearly mentioned" in advertisements and product descriptions.
The regulator fined the company 550,059 Turkish lira ($15,200).
Contacted by AFP, Adidas admitted it had "updated" the specification on its website, without commenting on the fine.
"Following an individual notification regarding a product description on our Turkish e-com website, we have updated the material specifications for the product accordingly," it said in a brief statement.
In 2020, Turkey's Presidency of Religious Affairs ruled it was "not permissible to manufacture shoes or garments from pigskin or pigskin hair".
"It is accepted by nearly all Muslim scholars that pigskin cannot be made pure by tanning or similar processes," it said.
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Axios
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White House moves on data echo emerging markets
Investors in emerging markets that have leaders who cast doubt on national economic data may have lessons for American traders, as President Trump continues to dispute official statistics. Why it matters: The U.S. is by no means an emerging market or dictatorship. But looking at how markets around the world perform under authoritarian leadership holds some important lessons for domestic investors. Catch up quick: Trump has made several recent moves. Fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Pressured Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates. Cut a deal to take a portion of revenue from two major American chip companies selling semiconductors to China. Called on Goldman Sachs to fire its head economist, after the institution predicted, alongside most of Wall Street, that tariffs would drive inflation and slow growth. Created a scorecard that rates companies and trade associations on how hard they worked to support and promote the "One Big Beautiful Bill," a senior White House official tells Axios' Mike Allen. State of play: "In emerging markets whenever we see the administration trying to dictate monetary policy it's almost always received extremely poorly," says Jason Hsu, founder of Rayliant Global Advisors, where he focuses on emerging markets. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index is up over 20% year-to-date compared with the 10% year-to-date gains of the S&P 500. Emerging markets with authoritarian leaders can still have strong stock market performance Fabio Natalucci, CEO of the Andersen Institute for Finance and Economics and a former deputy director of the International Monetary Fund, tells Axios. What matters are the specific policies of each leader, how they affect the independence of the central bank, and the integrity of economic data. Between the lines: Highly centralized leadership in emerging markets tends to come with a weak local currency, high inflation and slowing growth. In Turkey, the head of the central bank has been dismissed a number of times, which has led to a crash of the Turkish currency. In China, doubts over economic data have forced investors to rely on alternate sources, including shipping volumes and satellite images. Zoom in: The risk in this particular moment is that Fed independence is under pressure while the full potential impact of tariffs has not been felt yet, which could leave monetary policy "really behind the curve," Natalucci says. The U.S. is "thriving because it's an open economy. It's a rules-based economy," he adds. If the rules are rewritten, it could be a catalyst for investors to continue moving away from dollar-denominated assets. Yes, but: Not only is the U.S. not an emerging market, but American leadership still has the kind of credibility that emerging markets leaders often lack, Hsu notes. Trump has "a lot of willing believers," including market participants who felt economic data gathering needed reforms to make it more accurate. What we're watching:"The market will price (any) policy mistake," Natalucci says. The bond market has been relatively stable since April. But if the Fed were to cut rates amid hot inflation, bond investors could react negatively, pushing up yields and making debt more expensive. And that could put pressure on the administration, which has already proven that it reacts when the bond market panics. The White House responded to an Axios request for comment on these parallels via email. "There is no virtue in defending a broken status quo and upholding elite-approved America Last policies that have eroded our industrial base and decimated American communities," White House spokesman Kush Desai writes, pointing to efforts to lower inflation and strike trade deals.
Business Insider
4 hours ago
- Business Insider
Finding Dora
Months ago, Ahmet Tozal took out three credit card loans and withdrew his life savings to make a fortune off crypto. The 44-year-old Turkish garment worker, who lived in Istanbul at the time, said he'd been goaded by a new friend who contacted him via a random WhatsApp message in 2023. The woman claimed she'd messaged him accidentally, but was friendly and seemed interested in Turkey, Tozal said. She told him she was a wealthy businesswoman who would soon be visiting his country on holiday. Tozal said she sent him dozens of photos of herself, a young East Asian woman traveling the world and attending prestigious conferences. He said they video-called once, for a few seconds. Eventually, she suggested he try investing in crypto. The trajectory of their relationship has the hallmarks of what global authorities call a classic pig-butchering scam, typically run by gangs in Asia. Tozal said that over several weeks, the woman convinced him to invest about 400,000 Turkish lira, or a year's worth of his wages, into a cryptocurrency called UAI Coin. It never existed. Tozal told me he lost everything. Saddled with debt and broke, Tozal moved alone to Uzbekistan to find a higher salary that could feed his family and pay off an extra 200,000 lira in loan interest. His wife and four children stayed behind in Turkey. "Whenever I think about it, it makes one almost go mad," he told me on a call from his shared apartment in Andijan. Pig-butchering, a crypto scam that started in China, is now a global crisis. It draws its name from the concept of fattening a pig before slaughter: The purveyors build a relationship with a mark over weeks or months before persuading them to give away or invest large sums. A 2024 University of Texas study estimated that $75 billion has been lost to such schemes since 2020. In 2023, the Heartland Tri-State Bank in Kansas went bankrupt after its CEO poured $47 million of company cash into a similar scam. Tozal has little chance of recovering his money, and dozens of other men say they were fooled by the same scam. Betrayed and desperate for any restitution possible, they latched onto the only lead they could find: the woman behind the screen. Who was she? Each of the men had photos and videos of her, the young East Asian woman who seemed to be living the high life, but not much else to go on. As they hunted for answers, their stories of loss and grievance would come to haunt a person thousands of miles away, a millennial trying to make a name for herself on Instagram. For months, as he was lured into the crypto trap, Tozal knew her only as Dora. Over nine months, I spoke with more than a dozen men from around the world — many in Central and West Asia — who say they've been affected by this specific pig-butchering scam. While their experiences varied, each one was tricked with the likeness of the same Asian woman. Seven of these men, including Tozal, agreed to full interviews. I verified all of their identities, and they showed me evidence of their online interactions. Several also showed me screenshots of their financial transactions. Many were unwilling to be named and said they did not report their losses to the authorities for fear of being seen as fools and damaging their reputations. Some said they'd fallen in love with their WhatsApp acquaintance; Tozal said he and Dora were strictly friends. The men come from different companies and walks of life. The common denominator? They all had jobs and thus a source of cash. Aamy Ace, a 44-year-old Indian pharmaceutical manufacturing worker, said he was cheated out of $12,000 meant for his father's cancer treatment. Another man, a 24-year-old Kazakhstani restaurant manager in Almaty named Amir, said he borrowed and lost $8,000 — 10 times his monthly salary. They remember different names. Some said they spoke to "Jasmine" for weeks, while others knew her as "Anna." Several, like Tozal, told me their contact was "Dora." The playbook for this scam is standardized. Men like Tozal would receive a cold text and slowly be persuaded to strike up a friendship or romance with the texter. All were sent photos of the same young Asian woman. "A very standard hook is an attractive person, male or female, coming in and saying: 'Oh yeah, I have a business opportunity, I'm going to come see you soon,'" said Joshua James, a cybercrime coordinator in Bangkok with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Eventually, their contacts convinced them to invest in a fake asset. Most of the men said they put their money into a faux cryptocurrency called UAI Coin. A mobile app and fake trading website lent a sheen of legitimacy to the setup. At first, the profits seemed eye-watering. Erdi Bilgiç, a 36-year-old Turkish electrician in Zonguldak, told me his initial $100 investment turned into $500 overnight in late 2023. Bilgiç, calling himself an avid investor, said he tracks stock prices and bitcoin almost daily, and felt UAI Coin's prices moved in sync with the market. He said that when he withdrew his initial gains, he received the full sum in his bank account. Emboldened, he took out a $1,500 loan at Dora's behest, gathered his life's savings of about $10,000, and put them all in UAI Coin. "She told me: 'Sell your car, sell this, sell that,'" he said. Losing it all To Tozal and Bilgiç, it seemed as though there was only one woman contacting them. But scam gangs, many based in Southeast Asia, are known to force human-trafficked victims to work in teams, sometimes with multiple people posing as the same woman in conversation with a mark. The US Institute of Peace estimated in 2024 that some 220,000 trafficked victims are involved in scams. "Judging by a lot of testimonies of survivors of human trafficking coming from scam compounds, many of them were being asked to pose as attractive young ladies," said Mina Chiang, founder of Humanity Research Consultancy, a UK-registered anti-trafficking social enterprise. To make their ploy more convincing, gangs have a woman take part in occasional video calls or voice messages. Several men in the Dora scam told me they received voice messages and forwarded them to me. A few, including Tozal, also said they had brief video calls. These tactics helped to convince them that Dora was real, they told me. Once the men's savings are invested, the critical point of the scam unfolds. The victims discover they can't withdraw their funds, and the scammers try squeezing them for more. "It is what it is. My money is gone." Tozal said he asked Dora for help and was directed to pay a tax-related fine to unlock his account. When that didn't work, he said, an engineer's fee was required. He said he knew then that he'd been fooled. The funds he lost, including his debt, are worth about $15,000 now, in a country where the average worker earns $7,300 a year. "It is what it is. My money is gone," Tozal said. Others said they've lost even more. A 50-year-old Turkish academic in Ankara said he and his wife had sold their apartment to save for a new city-center flat and dumped that money, along with $50,000 he convinced relatives to invest, into UAI Coin. He showed me a police report he made in Ankara, in which he reported losing more than $100,000 to the scam. "I asked myself, how am I going to live? I can survive, but I have a daughter in school," he said. Now, he added, he and his wife are working weekends and second jobs to make ends meet. Finding Dora In the spring of 2024, the group scamming Tozal appeared to make a mistake. As the men nursed their wounded pride, some received an email offering further help. The sender neglected to blind carbon copy each victim's email address, and the men began to contact each other. They gathered on WhatsApp groups and social media, swapping stories of how they'd been fooled by UAI Coin. Soon, they realized they'd all been talking to the same woman. Younger ones, like Bilgiç the electrician, put her photos into a reverse Google image search. They found someone. She wasn't Dora, or Jasmine, or Anna: Her name was Abe. "I can't be sure 100% it's her, but the videos and photos that we saw online were consistent," Bilgiç said. Abe is a Malaysian woman, they learned. She lives over 5,000 miles from Tozal and Bilgiç and runs a public Instagram account. Her name quickly spread among the men. To those like Tozal, it seemed like the first real step to getting their money back. But as I soon discovered, this woman wasn't the mastermind of an audacious lonelyhearts scam; she was a different kind of victim. Abe Lim was 20 minutes late when we met at a café in Kuala Lumpur's upscale shopping district. Traffic was crazy that morning. "I'm so sorry," said the 29-year-old, sheepish as we shook hands. Lim was easy to find online, and once I got in touch with her, she was keen to talk. She has some 175,000 followers on Instagram, where she posts roughly twice or thrice a week, often glamour or fashion shots of herself. Lim told me her personal brand's focus is the climate crisis. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Abe Lim (@abe.1) Her family, she said, runs a petrochemical business that she left to build a social media following as an environmentalist. In 2023, she ran for a local state parliament seat while campaigning on climate action, but lost. Lim's day job is running a plastics recycling company she founded in 2021. She posts photos from conferences and symposiums across Asia and the US, and snaps of herself on holiday in Bali and at Buckingham Palace. The array of photos found its way into the phones of men like Bilgiç and Tozal, who believed "Dora" was a charitable multimillionaire. Sometime in late 2023, Lim said, she started receiving online messages from these men. She thought little of it at first. "Because I've sort of put myself in the public spotlight, I felt like it was expected," she said. In early 2024, she said, the men began contacting her friends and family and claiming she'd defrauded them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. There were rumors of self-harm or suicide. "You're like, OK, this is serious now," she said. As the year went on, Lim was trapped in an escalating online storm. Messages flooded her inbox and Instagram comments. She said she received dozens of emails and texts a day and showed me several on her phone. Lim was all smiles in her interview, but her fatigue and frustration were palpable. "It's mentally draining," Lim said. Some heartbroken men tried to rekindle a nonexistent relationship with her; others sent threats, she said. For the first few months of 2024, she told me, she feared leaving her home in Malaysia. Lim now tries to delay her social media posts by a few days to keep her live location secret. "There were messages that said like: 'I'll fly down to kill you, track you down and make you pay for what you did,'" Lim said. The men were divided on whether Lim was "Dora" or an unwitting victim of someone pretending to be her. Some, like Bilgiç, said she clearly wasn't the woman they had chatted with. Several sent me recordings of their video calls, which showed East or Southeast Asian women holding up a hand or using a camera angle to obscure their faces. "Internet connection is not good," said a woman in one video I viewed. She was clearly not Lim. 'Should I compensate them?' As Lim and I sipped tea in Malaysia, she explained how she was grappling with a dilemma. With her personal brand living on Instagram, how much time should she spend defending her reputation and speaking out against scams? Should she stop posting? Her brand was about the climate crisis, not going to war against fraud. "I have a platform, it's not that hard for me," she said. "But do I want to be known as the person that combats this?" In February 2024, she posted several warnings about scams on Instagram. Some of the men were insisting she was liable for their losses because her images were used. "They say they know it's not you, but it's your photos anyway, so you should take some responsibility of compensating them with some amount," she said. Lim said she considered paying some of them until her family talked her out of it. "I had a lot of guilt," Lim said. "I felt like, would these allegations have appeared if I had brought this up in public earlier?" 'Who are you going to sue?' James, the UNODC cybercrime coordinator, said Lim fits the profile of a content creator whose images are farmed by scam rings. "This is actually just a third party that has nothing at all to do with anything in the scam, and they sometimes have to even suffer the legal consequences afterward. Because, who are you going to sue?" James said. For swindlers, Lim's account was perfect. She was not well-known enough for a target to recognize her, and she frequently posted photos of herself in new outfits or at public events — a wealth of content to exploit. Online footage and voice data can also be fed to an artificial intelligence algorithm to create a face filter for use in video calls, James added. In Lim's case, several victims sent me screenshots of video calls with scam workers, which appeared to feature AI-empowered deepfake face filters. When analyzing the screenshots, James said some images were highly suspicious, with tell-tale features of AI filters such as discoloration on the edges of the face and crispness around hair. He added that varying chin shapes and neck bumps in the webcam images also indicated the victims were likely called by at least two different women using deepfake filters. "I would say it is very likely the images with white are deepfakes," James said. Fraudsters, roaming free Lim said what frustrates her most is that she's reported dozens of Instagram and Facebook accounts using her name and photos. Many were not taken down. A Facebook search of her name shows her photos on a dozen accounts purported to be of women living in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. Some claim to run a plastics recycling company with the same name as Lim's firm. "If you have a verified account with this face," Lim said, pointing to herself. "You shouldn't allow an account with the same photo to stay up." A spokesperson for Meta, which runs Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, told me via email that it was committed to keeping its platforms safe and that it continues to "invest in detection technology and work with law enforcement to prosecute scammers." "Impersonation is against Meta's policies and we remove these accounts when they're found," the spokesperson wrote. The company said it dealt with 1 billion fake accounts on its platforms in the first quarter of this year. Meta did not comment on Lim's case specifically. Legally, Lim can't do much to compel Meta, which is headquartered in California, to take down accounts using her images, said Eric Goldman, the codirector of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. "In the United States, Facebook may have no obligation to intervene to shut down or correct scam accounts," he said. US law protects social media firms from liability for third-party content posted on their platforms. Meanwhile, Bilgiç and other victims in Turkey have engaged local lawyers in hopes of suing whoever took their money or compelling their arrest. It'll be a long shot. "It's the general principle of criminal law. If you cannot find the person committing the crime, your hands are tied," Tarık Güleryüz, a partner at the Turkish law firm Güleryüz Partners, told me about the country's legal standards. James, the UNODC anti-cybercrime coordinator, said perpetrators know the world's law enforcement system is ill-equipped to deal with pig-butchering scams. A victim's best hope is an international coalition involving Turkey, Malaysia, and wherever the culprits are located, James said. China, a country with considerable influence in Laos and Cambodia, has performed cross-border raids there, mostly against scam rings targeting Chinese citizens. For countries like Turkey and Malaysia, nearly 5,200 miles apart, the best the men can do is hope and wait. These days, Lim is posting frequently on social media and is trying to grow her brand as an environmentalist. "All I lost was some reputation and photos. I didn't lose money, I didn't go through heartbreak with someone who didn't exist," Lim said. This year, she enrolled in a master's program for sustainable development management at Sunway University in Selangor. Tozal, who lost his life savings to "Dora," is also trying to move on. He said his wife was furious with him, and when I asked last month how their relationship was faring, Tozal said he's just trying to focus on working to support his family. He travels to see his children once every six months or so. Sitting in the kitchen of the Uzbek flat he shares with a roommate, he wondered aloud if he should blame himself. Years ago, he'd seen news reports of men falling for scams and marveled at how they could be fooled. "But when you see bits of a luxurious life coming your way, when you see the money coming into your account, inevitably you start feeling a type of way, even if you don't want to," Tozal said. He was just being human, he said. Now, he's in a foreign land, working alone. Translation by Ezgi Evrim Ozkol and Evgeniya Strygina.
CNBC
7 hours ago
- CNBC
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