Latest news with #LainaChan
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Daily Mail
Terrifying method scammer used to make Aussie WILLINGLY hand over their possessions after being approached on the street: '$200,000 gone'
A Sydneysider has lost $200,000 in a terrifying 'Chinese blessing scam', with loved ones convinced she was given a drug to comply with their demands. Mei Lin*, 85, was conned into handing over a haul of valuable jewellery and cash in a sophisticated street fraud, in Homebush West, when scammers told her the belongings needed to be 'blessed' to prevent harm to her family, on January 11, 2018. Close relative and barrister Laina Chan has claimed the fraud involved the scammers drugging Ms Lin by blowing scopolamine, also known as 'devil's breath', onto her. She said the police were 'very sceptical' when she said the fraud was part of a worldwide scam and didn't feel she was believed when she said 'they were using this drug'. Ms Lin feels embarrassed about falling victim to the scam and has never told her family what she was thinking when she handed over her prized possessions. The scam is believed to have originated in China and Hong Kong in the early 2000s, and it has spread worldwide, with victims in the UK, US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Elderly Chinese women are generally targeted with scammers exploiting cultural fears in the cruel con. Women are convinced their families are at risk from spirits and need to have their wealth blessed to protect them from curses or illness. Victims are tricked into handing over their prized belongings to be blessed, but once scammers are in possession of their money and valuables, the items are swapped with objects of no value. Scammers encourage the women not to open their bags for an extended time following the 'blessing'. Ms Lin was approached at a post box by a middle-aged Asian woman who claimed she was looking for a special herb needed to cure her injured daughter. A second woman pretended to overhear and said she knew a healer, before guiding Ms Lin away to a man who claimed to know the healer. The man shared his concern Ms Lin's daughter would fall ill if her belongings weren't blessed, and she was then escorted to her house where she filled a bag with $196,000 worth of jewellery. She then withdrew $5,000 and added the cash to her bag. Ms Chan said her relative doesn't believe in 'spiritual blessings' and said the idea Ms Lin handed over money without being under the influence is 'nonsense'. 'There's no way this would have happened but for the fact that they had used the drug and made her comply,' she told The Sydney Morning Herald. 'They come next to you, and they just blow a little bit at you, and you don't even realise they've blown a little bit of a drug at you, and just enough to make you really compliant, so you're hypnotised.' Scopolamine can be used in some medications to treat motion sickness, but the potent drug can also disorient and incapacitate users. Ms Lin has no recollection of when she handed over her bag, but she began to feel suspicious when she was told to keep the bag next to her bed for three months after it was returned to her. When she got home, Ms Lin opened the bag to find a bottle of water and two candles. She reported the scam to the police, but CCTV was never recovered and no arrests were made. The North West Metropolitan Region established Strike Force Sentinel to investigate these scams across Sydney from July 2023. Police have received reports for over 80 incidents across Sydney, including including Ryde, Burwood, Parramatta and Hornsby areas. More than $3million in cash and valuables has been stolen by scammers. NSW Police have said 'there is no evidence or inquiries being made into the use of drugs to facilitate the scams'. In July, NSW Police charged two Chinese nationals and issued arrest warrants for seven others in connection with 85 reported scams over two years, which resulted in more than $3million being stolen. They say at least 50 scammers, 25 of whom have been identified, have been counted since the investigation began in 2023. *Mei Lin is not the victim's real name.
Associated Press
08-07-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
From Product to Practice: What Lawyers Really Want From AI, According to MiAI Law CEO Laina Chan
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, July 8, 2025 / / -- MiAI Law is reshaping Legal AI Research by addressing what legal professionals truly need: trust, traceability, and legal reasoning—built from the ground up by a practicing barrister. In the latest interview from Xraised, 'From Product to Practice: What Lawyers Really Want From AI', award-winning barrister and MiAI Law CEO Laina Chan breaks down the gap between traditional legaltech tools and the real-world demands of lawyers. Rather than hype, Chan brings a grounded, legal-first approach to AI—offering a clear vision of how Legal AI Research should serve the legal profession. MiAI Law: The AI Built by a Barrister, Not Just Engineers Founded by Laina Chan, a practicing construction law barrister with over two decades at the bar, MiAI Law was developed with one question in mind: What do lawyers actually need from AI? 'It's not just about getting quick answers,' Chan says. 'Lawyers need responses they can trust—rooted in legal principles, backed by citations, and structured to match the way we think.' With a legal architecture designed by Chan herself, MiAI Law delivers fast, accurate, footnoted answers sourced from primary case law and legislation—removing the guesswork that plagues generic AI tools. Chan did not build MiAI Law to impress VCs. She built it because she was sick of legal tech that couldn't reason—and wasting hours doing case law the hard way. Most tools were fast but shallow, smart-sounding but legally useless. MiAI Law is different: it thinks like a lawyer because it was built by one, with legal reasoning, traceability, and primary sources at its core—not shortcuts. Real Legal AI Research, Not Just Flashy Tech Many AI tools fail lawyers by focusing on form over function. They sound smart but miss legal nuance. MiAI Law changes that. The platform reasons from first principles, traverses full legal databases, and ties every conclusion to a verifiable source. 'Generic models hallucinate. MiAI Law doesn't,' Chan explains. 'It's been trained to think like a barrister, not a chatbot.' In benchmark testing, MiAI Law answered 30 high-level legal questions in under two hours—research that previously took weeks of manual work. It's not about replacing lawyers. It's about giving them a competitive edge. What Lawyers Really Want From AI: Speed With Substance Chan highlights a key misconception: that lawyers simply want faster tools. In reality, MiAI Law focuses on transparency, accuracy, and efficiency—turning AI into a legal research partner, not a risk factor. Every MiAI Law report includes footnotes and direct hyperlinks to relevant cases or statutes, allowing lawyers to verify and explore results with full context. Whether they're in a mediation, drafting pleadings, or validating strategy, users know exactly where the information comes from. AI Is Not the Threat—It's the Ally Chan addresses the lingering fear that AI could replace legal professionals: 'AI won't take your job. But someone using AI effectively might,' she notes. 'I built MiAI Law to help myself—not replace myself.' Rather than automating legal judgment, MiAI Law frees up time so lawyers can focus on what truly matters: strategy, advocacy, and outcomes. It gives them the capacity to be sharper, faster, and better informed—without compromising ethics or quality. See the Interview, Explore the Future Watch the full conversation with Laina Chan and learn how MiAI Law is building the next generation of Legal AI Research: From Product to Practice: What Lawyers Really Want From AI. Learn more about MiAI Law's products and legal-first design: 🔗 Media Contact: Ethan Hunt [email protected] Gianmarco Giordaniello Xraised email us here Visit us on social media: LinkedIn Instagram X Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content 'as is' without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
