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  • To tackle plastic waste, tackle DRM

    To tackle plastic waste, tackle DRM

    Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), the “handcuffs” restricting how you can use most digital media, isn’t just an issue that affects files, formats, websites, and streaming (dis)services. It has consequences in the physical world, too. Perhaps none of them are more notorious than DRM-locked printer ink cartridges. You buy them, but arbitrary restrictions set by the manufacturer like specific page counts force you to toss them out prematurely, even if they can continue to work well for months or years more. Landfills needlessly grow, increasing the spread of microplastics and other harmful chemicals as these cartridges disintegrate, potentially even ending up in our food chain. All this simply because of software that restricts our freedom.

    It’s been encouraging to see forward-thinking city councils like that of Los Angeles do the right thing and ban a kind of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) so ubiquitous that we often forget it is DRM. Whether physical or not, the worst part about DRM isn’t the daily inconveniences it gives us. It’s how we collectively forget that things could be a different way.

    Outside of aggressive industry lobbying, there’s no reason these limitations on using ink cartridges and any other forms of Digital Restrictions Management need to exist. In each and every case, they’re an artificial limitation placed on our technological freedom. When considering DRM, it’s important to remember that it is someone’s job to make a piece of technology or program malfunction. That limitation is intentionally designed by the corporation behind the product. In that sense, it is a “feature,” only one purposefully unhelpful, and what we’ve called an “anti-feature” in the past. In short, it’s defective by design

    It doesn’t matter how widespread any one particular form of DRM is: we can still end it, whether with enough justified public outcry or concerted effort. The situation with ink cartridges isn’t so far removed from the “K-Cup debacle”. A decade ago, Keurig released the Keurig 2.0, which only accepted K-Cups with special, proprietary ink, and made it impossible to brew third-party grounds. After intense backlash from their customers and people around the globe — showing it’s a bad idea to put any kind of middleman between someone and their coffee — Keurig walked back the restriction. We can do this with ink cartridges, with Spotify, or any other form of DRM as well.

    At the Defective by Design campaign and the FSF generally, our argument against DRM originates from the philosophical basis of our principles, a way of spelling out the basic rights and freedoms every computer user deserves. Simply wanting to minimize electronic waste is as good of a reason as any for rejecting DRM, and encouraging others to do the same.

    If you want to encourage your (US) city council or board of aldermen to adopt a similar measure, we recommend writing a letter like the following:

    Dear [Name],

    I am writing to urge the city council to take action against ink cartridges restricted by Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) based on the extreme and unnecessary amount of electronic waste produced by these devices and the harm it does to customers and the environment.

    As you know, modern printer cartridges artificially disable themselves according to arbitrary criteria set by the manufacturer, whether that’s a specific number of page counts, a “tripwire” signaling third-party maintenance has been done on the printer itself, or some specific date after first activation. The result is to often leave people no other option than to throw away perfectly good cartridges, regardless of their current level of ink.

    This is just one way in which technology deprives us of basic freedoms we are all entitled to. The software that powers printers is no different than the software powering computers and cell phones: it should be free (as in freedom) for the community to study, share, and build for themselves.

    I encourage the city to follow the example recently set by the Los Angeles City Council, which voted to cut down on electronic waste and protect their constituents from harmful practices in December 2025.

    Sincerely,
    [Your Name]

    In the meantime, keep an eye on the Defective by Design campaign as we prepare for the next International Day Against DRM, which we’ve set for July 17, 2026. It’s our way of “commemorating” the most infamous event in the history of Digital Restrictions Management: Amazon’s remote deletion of copies of 1984 from their customer’s Swindles. Stand with us against DRM and for user freedom — we’ll see you in July.

    “Canon PG-810 CL-811 ink cartridge” © 2011 by eFilm. This image is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

  • The Surprisingly Progressive Erotic Films of Russ Meyer

    The Surprisingly Progressive Erotic Films of Russ Meyer

    One of the most tiresome debates in online film discourse is whether there’s too much sex in movies, even as there is demonstrably less sex in movies than there has been in decades. It’s easy to blast as neo-Puritanism, but if it is, it’s a strange kind: people complain about sex scenes as tame as those in Oppenheimer or sexy popstar Sabrina Carpenter being a sexy popstar, but watch hardcore porn on their phones. It’s an odd reconstruction of the feminist sex wars of the 1980s and ’90s, simultaneously taking pro- and anti-sex positions by reifying the Madonna/whore complex: sexuality is degrading objectification for certain women, but not others. At least part of it is a reaction to the #MeToo era, which reorientated how we think about actresses taking off their clothes on screen. That squeamishness doesn’t extend to pornstars or OnlyFans models, maybe because “taking off clothes” is a core part of their job description, or because of their pervasive dehumanization. This discourse about the supposed gratuitousness of sex on screen is underpinned, as Madison Huizinga puts it at CafĂ© Hysteria, by an “inability to parse sex and sexuality from objectification
 resulting in all mentions of sex often collapsing under one clumsily defined umbrella.”

  • Madagascar’s Transitional Leader Taps Anti-Corruption Expert as Prime Minister

    Mamitiana Rajaonarison, an anti-corruption expert newly appointed as Madagascar’s prime minister, pledged on Monday to put himself “at the service” of the country in his first public address since taking the helm of the government.

    Rajaonarison’s appointment was formalized on Sunday by transitional President MichaĂ«l Randrianirina at the state palace in Iavoloha. The move came just a week after Randrianirina abruptly dissolved the administration of the former prime minister, Herintsalama Rajaonarivelo.

    The choice places a veteran financial investigator at the top of a government struggling to stabilize the island nation following severe political unrest last year.

    In a video statement released Monday, Rajaonarison vowed to place himself entirely “at the service of Madagascar and the Malagasy people.”

    While he has not yet laid out a detailed governing agenda, his résumé sends a clear political message at a volatile moment. 

    Since April 2021, Rajaonarison has served as the director general of SAMIFIN, Madagascar’s financial intelligence service, which is tasked with combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Prior to that role, he spent more than a decade at BIANCO, the country’s independent anti-corruption bureau, according to the local news outlet 2424.mg.

    In a speech detailing the appointment, Randrianirina said he chose Rajaonarison “for his integrity” and explicitly directed him to lead the government “on the path of integrity” to restore public hope.

    According to reports from 2424.mg, the transitional president urged the new premier to move quickly to form a cabinet, implement the government’s transitional program, and unite the country’s fractured “living forces.”

    Official channels moved swiftly to codify the leadership change. The Foreign Ministry confirmed the March 15 appointment in a public statement, and official postings referenced Decree No. 2026-776, which formalized the presidential act.

    For Randrianirina—who assumed power following last year’s upheaval—the appointment is a critical step in his promise to deliver structural reforms, draft a new constitution, and ultimately guide the country toward future democratic elections. Tapping a career anti-corruption official is a clear attempt to signal a definitive break from the political crises of the past.

    In his first public video statement on Monday, Madagascar’s new prime minister and anti-corruption expert, Mamitiana Rajaonarison, said he was determined to place himself “at the service of Madagascar and the Malagasy people” after being appointed to lead the government. 

    Rajaonarison’s Rajaonarivelo. According to 2424.mg’s report on the appointment, Rajaonarison had served since April 2021 as director general of SAMIFIN, Madagascar’s financial intelligence service, which is responsible for fighting money laundering and terrorism financing. Before that, the outlet reported, he spent more than a decade at BIANCO, the country’s independent anti-corruption bureau.

    In a separate 2424.mg article quoting the president’s speech, Randrianirina said he had chosen Rajaonarison “for his integrity” and wanted him to lead the government “on the path of integrity” to restore hope. He also urged the new premier to move quickly to form a cabinet, implement the transitional government’s program, and unite the country’s “living forces.”

    Official government channels also moved quickly to formalize the decision. Madagascar’s Foreign Ministry said in a Facebook statement that Rajaonarison had been named prime minister and head of government on March 15. Other official and semi-official Facebook posts referenced Decree No. 2026-776, indicating the appointment had been formalized by presidential act the same day.

    The choice puts an anti-corruption official at the center of a government facing political uncertainty. Randrianirina, who took power after last year’s unrest, has promised reforms and a path toward a new constitution and future elections. Rajaonarison has not yet laid out a detailed governing agenda publicly, but both his rĂ©sumĂ© and the president’s remarks suggest the appointment is being presented as a clean-government signal at a volatile moment for Madagascar.

  • What are the symptoms of meningitis and is there a vaccine?

    Two people have died following an outbreak of meningitis, including one student at the University of Kent.

  • Pluralistic: Tools vs uses (16 Mar 2026)

    Today’s links


    A pegboard at a hardware store, festooned with tools, with smoke closing in on it from above and below.

    Tools vs uses (permalink)

    When you think of a legal loophole, you probably imagine a drafting error (or perhaps a sneaky insertion) that creates an advantage for a specific person or group of people.

    For example: Trump’s 2017 “Big Beautiful Tax Cut” bill passed after its 479 pages were covered in hand-scrawled amendments and additions, which were not read or reviewed by lawmakers prior to voting:

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/12/02/handwriting-wall-and-page-senate-passes-tax-bill/915957001/

    But one change that was widely known was Senator Ron Johnson’s last-minute amendment to create deductions for “pass through entities.” Johnson announced that he would block the bill if his amendment didn’t go through. That amendment made three of Johnson’s constituents at least half a billion dollars: Uline owners Dick and Liz Uihlein and roofing tycoon Diane Hendricks (who collectively donated $20m to Johnson’s campaign).

    All told, the Trump tax bill generated windfalls worth more than $1b for just 82 households, all of whom donated lavishly to the lawmakers who inserted incredibly specific amendments that benefited them, personally:

    https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/11/the-canada-variant/#shitty-man-of-history-theory

    Here’s another example: in 1999, a Congressional staffer named Mitch Glazier secured a last-minute, one-line amendment to the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act that took away musicians’ ability to claim back the rights to their sound recordings after 35 years through a process called “Termination of Transfer”:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Glazier#Work_for_hire

    This amendment whacked one group of musicians particularly hard: the Black “heritage acts” who had been coerced into signing unbelievably shitty contracts in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, who were increasingly using termination to get those rights back. For these beloved musicians, termination meant the difference between going hungry and buying a couple extra bags of groceries every month (if this sounds familiar, it might be because you read about it in my 2024 novel The Bezzle):

    https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865892/thebezzle/

    Glazier’s treachery was so outrageous that Congress actually convened a special session to repeal his amendment, and Glazier slunk out of Congress forever
so that he could take a job at $1.3m/year as CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, where he squats to this day, insisting that he is fighting for musicians’ rights:

    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131669037

    These are the traditional loopholes – obscure codicils in legislation that allow their beneficiaries to enrich themselves at others’ expense. But there’s another, equally pernicious kind of loophole that gets far less attention: a loophole that neutralizes a beneficial part of a law, taking away a right that the law seems to confer.

    I have spent most of my adult life fighting against one of these rights-confiscating reverse loopholes: the “exemptions” clause to Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA 1201), which might just be the most dangerous technology law on the books:

    https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/14/sole-and-despotic/#world-turned-upside-down

    Under DMCA 1201, it’s a felony – punishable by a 5-year sentence and a $500k fine – to bypass an “access control” for a copyrighted work. This means that altering the software (that is, “a copyrighted work”) in a device you own – a car, a tractor, a hearing aid, a smart speaker, a printer, a phone, a console, etc, etc – is a crime, even if your alteration does not break any other laws.

    For example: there is no law requiring you to buy your printer ink from the company that sold you your printer. However, the cartel of companies that control the inkjet market all use software that is designed to block generic ink. You could turn this code off, but that would be a felony under Section 1201 of the DMCA, which means that, in practice, it’s a felony to put generic ink in your printer. Jay Freeman calls it “felony contempt of business model.”

    When the DMCA was being debated, lawmakers faced fierce criticism over this clause, so they inserted a “safety valve” into the law that was supposed to prevent the kind of abuse that allows printer companies to force you to pay $10,000/gallon for ink.

    That escape valve is called the “triennial exemptions process.” Every three years, the US Copyright Office invites submissions for “exemptions” to DMCA 1201. They’ve granted lots of these – the right to circumvent access controls on video games for preservation purposes, on DVDs for film criticism, and on various kinds of electronics for repair.

    This process may strike you as a little cumbersome – do you really have to wait up to three years to pay a lawyer to beg the government for the right to make a legal use of your own property? But this is a reverse loophole, and that means that this isn’t merely cumbersome, it’s farcical.

    You see, the exemptions that the Copyright Office grants through the triennial process aren’t tools exemptions, they’re use exemptions. That means that when the Copyright Office grants an exemption giving you the right to jailbreak your car so that you can make sense of the manufacturer’s diagnostic codes and turn your “check engine” light into a specific, actionable diagnosis.

    You have that right. Your mechanic does not have that right. You have the right to jailbreak your car and fix it.

    But it’s worse than that: your right to jailbreak your car does not mean that anyone else gets the right to make a tool that allows you to make that use. You have a use exemption, but there is no tool exemption. That means that you, personally, must reverse-engineer the firmware in your car, identify a fault in the code, and leverage that to personally write software to turn the diagnostic codes into diagnoses. You are not allowed to talk to anyone else about this. You’re not allowed to publish your findings. You’re certainly not allowed to share the tool you create with anyone else.

    This is true of all the exemptions the Copyright Office grants. If you’re a film professor who’s been given the right to jailbreak DVDs, you are expected to write your own DVD decrypting software, without help from anyone else, and if you manage it, you can’t tell anyone else how you did it. If you’re an iPhone owner who’s been granted the right to jailbreak your phone and install a different app store, then you, personally, must identify a vulnerability in iOS and develop it into an exploit that you are only allowed to use on your own devices. Every other iPhone owner has to do the same thing.

    DMCA 1201 has been copy-pasted into law-books all over the world. In Europe, it came in through Article 6 of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive (EUCD6). When Norway implemented this law, lawmakers included a bunch of use exemptions in a bid to placate the fierce opposition they faced. One of these exemptions allowed blind people to jailbreak ebooks so they could be used with Braille printers, screen readers, and other assistive devices.

    In 2003, I traveled to Oslo to debate the minister responsible for the bill. He proudly trumpeted this exemption, so I started asking him questions about it:

    How do blind people get the software that jailbreaks their ebooks so they can make use of this exemption? Am I allowed to give them that tool?

    No, the minister said, you’re not allowed to do that, that would be a crime.

    Is the Norwegian government allowed to give them that tool? No. How about a blind rights advocacy group? No, not them either. A university computer science department? Nope. A commercial vendor? Certainly not.

    No, the minister explained, under his law, a blind person would be expected to personally reverse-engineer a program like Adobe E-Reader, in hopes of discovering a defect that they could exploit by writing a program to extract the ebook text.

    Oh, I said. But if a blind person did manage to do this, could they supply that tool to other blind people?

    Well, no, the minister said. Each and every blind person must personally – without any help from anyone else – figure out how to reverse-engineer the ebook program, and then individually author their own alternative reader program that worked with the text of their ebooks.

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/28/mcbroken/#my-milkshake-brings-all-the-lawyers-to-the-yard

    I don’t know for sure how many blind Norwegians have managed to take advantage of this use exemptions, but I’m pretty certain it’s zero.

    Canada’s anticircumvention law was passed in 2012 through Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act. Like EUCD6, C-11 has all the defects of America’s anticircumvention law. In 2024, Parliament passed a national Right to Repair law (Bill C-244) and a national Interoperability law (Bill C-294). Both of them grant use exemptions to Bill C-11 – they allow Canadians to jailbreak their devices to fix them or extend their functionality with interoperable code and hardware. But neither bill has a tools exemption, which means that they are useless, since they only grant Canadians the individual, personal right to jailbreak, but they don’t allow Canadian businesses or tinkerers or user groups to make the tools that Canadians need to exercise the use rights that Parliament so generously granted:

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

    Reverse loopholes are incredibly wicked. They exist solely to muddy the waters, to trick people into thinking that problems have been solved while those problems continue to fester. Hardly a week goes without my hearing from someone who’s happened upon the use exemptions built into anticircumvention laws around the world and have come to the reasonable conclusion that if a law gives you the right to do something, it must also give other people the right to help you do it.

    Lawmakers who pass these reverse loopholes know what they’re doing. They’re chaffing the policy airspace, ramming through unpopular legislation under cover of a blizzard of misleading legalese.

    Hey look at this (permalink)


    A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

    Object permanence (permalink)

    #20yrsago Full text of Bruce Sterling’s ETECH speech from last week https://web.archive.org/web/20060406025248/http://www.viridiandesign.org/2006/03/viridian-note-00459-emerging.html

    #20yrsago HOWTO build a glowing throne out of 4k AOL CDs https://web.archive.org/web/20060408174929/https://stupidco.com/aol_throne_intro.html

    #20yrsago How Sweden’s “Pirate Bay” site resists the MPAA https://web.archive.org/web/20060423222220/https://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70358-0.html

    #15yrsago Stephen King sticks up for unions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1vW1zPmnKQ

    #15yrsago Largest Wisconsin protests ever: 85,000+ people in Madison’s streets https://web.archive.org/web/20110319152841/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/12/wisconsin-protesters-refu_n_834927.html

    #15yrsago Why Borders failed https://www.quora.com/Borders-Books/Why-is-Barnes-Noble-performing-well-as-a-business-while-Borders-has-filed-for-bankruptcy/answer/Mark-Evans-9

    #15yrsago HOWTO make Pop Rocks https://www.instructables.com/Pop-Rocks/

    #15yrsago Ain’t Misbehavin’: subject index to democratic parenting https://memex.craphound.com/2011/03/14/aint-misbehavin-subject-index-to-democratic-parenting/

    #10yrsago 50 reasons the TPP is terrible beyond belief https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2016/03/the-trouble-with-the-tpp-day-50-the-case-against-ratifying-the-trans-pacific-partnership/

    #10yrsago More high-profile resignations at Breitbart, after abused reporter thrown under Trump’s bus https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosiegray/michelle-fields-ben-shapiro-resign-from-breitbart#.vlbZ4YxLe

    #10yrsago If Iceland held its elections today, the Pirate Party would win https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-to-dominate-icelan-parliament-survey-finds-160314/

    #10yrsago The Car Hacker’s Handbook: a Guide for Penetration Testers https://memex.craphound.com/2016/03/14/the-car-hackers-handbook-a-guide-for-penetration-testers/

    #10yrsago USA uses TPP-like trade-court to kill massive Indian solar project https://web.archive.org/web/20160314085012/http://theantimedia.org/preview-of-the-tpp-america-just-blocked-a-massive-solar-project-in-india/

    #10yrsago These 27 profitable S&P 500 companies paid no tax last year https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2016/03/07/27-giant-profitable-companies-paid-no-taxes/81399094/

    #10yrsago Family: police high-fived after tasering our handcuffed relative to death https://web.archive.org/web/20160312165903/https://www.ajc.com/news/news/crime-law/family-of-victim-in-coweta-county-taser-death-seek/nqhcm/

    #1yrago The future of Amazon coders is the present of Amazon warehouse workers https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/13/electronic-whipping/#youre-next

    Upcoming appearances (permalink)

    A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.


    A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

    Recent appearances (permalink)


    A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

    Latest books (permalink)


    A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

    Upcoming books (permalink)

    • “The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to AI,” a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026

    • “Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It” (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

    • “The Post-American Internet,” a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

    • “Unauthorized Bread”: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2027

    • “The Memex Method,” Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027


    Colophon (permalink)

    Today’s top sources:

    Currently writing: “The Post-American Internet,” a sequel to “Enshittification,” about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America ( words today, total)

    • “The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to AI,” a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

    • “The Post-American Internet,” a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

    • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

    This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

    Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

    How to get Pluralistic:

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    Pluralistic.net

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    https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

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    https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic

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    https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net

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    https://doctorow.medium.com/
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    Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

    https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic

    “When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla” -Joey “Accordion Guy” DeVilla

    READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies (“BOGUS AGREEMENTS”) that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

    ISSN: 3066-764X

  • Guterres urges action against ‘rising tide of anti-Muslim hatred’

    The UN chief on Monday urged countries to “work together” and eradicate a rising tide of anti-Muslim hate, calling for a rejection of “the narratives of fear and exclusion”. 

  • ‘Glimmer of hope’ in Haiti amid shifting gang frontlines

    The liberation of territory from gangs and a more “motivated and visible” police presence has provided a “glimmer of hope” for Haiti as the Caribbean island nation continues to struggle with violence, insecurity and poverty.

  • Middle East war’s ‘spiral of conflict’ drives mounting civilian toll

    The widening war in the Middle East and its growing impact on civilians came under scrutiny at the UN in Geneva on Monday, as independent experts briefing the Human Rights Council warned of escalating violence following the onset of Israeli and US strikes on Iran and counterstrikes by Tehran and allied groups.

  • Alleged ‘Fake Prince’ Arrested in Nigeria as Another Apparent Victim of the Romance Scam Comes Forward

    Within a week of the release of an OCCRP documentary exposing an online fraud operation, Nigerian authorities arrested a man allegedly involved in the scheme, while another apparent victim of the same scam came forward in Romania.

    In last month’s documentary, Exposed: Fake ‘Dubai Prince’ Tracked to Nigeria, reporters identified Nzube Henry Ikeji, 31, who was afterwards taken into custody. Charges have not been filed, a spokesman for Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crime Commission told OCCRP. 

    Ikeji’s arrest came nearly a week after the video revealed how he allegedly posed as the real-life Crown Prince of Dubai, cultivating a romance that defrauded $2.5 million from Laura, a Romanian businesswoman.   

    A second apparent victim of the scam came forward to OCCRP’s Romanian member center Context.ro after watching the documentary. Ana, who is also Romanian, presented Context.ro with documents indicating she was targeted by the same operation that left Laura in debt. 

    Both women were first contacted on LinkedIn by someone posing as the Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and claiming to represent a humanitarian foundation affiliated with the royal family of the United Arab Emirates.

    Communications provided by the women show that Ana first heard from the fake prince in October 2022, while he reached out to Laura a month later. Both were offered and accepted “an official vip humanitarian membership permit” for the sum of 7,748 UAE dirhams, which was paid out as 1,850 euros ($2,112).

    It is common for romance scammers to impersonate the Crown Prince of Dubai in a variation of the classic romance scam, which involves an impersonator cultivating an online relationship with a victim with the goal of milking them for as much money as possible before they realize they’ve been swindled. 

    In the case of both Laura and Ana, identical email addresses with similar messages and fake royal membership cards were used, indicating they were victims of the same group of scammers. Laura is a first name and Ana is pseudonym, as both victims wish to remain anonymous out of embarrassment.

    Ikeji could not be reached for comment on the latest allegations involving Ana. An email bounced back undelivered, while his previous lawyers did not respond to a request for comment. Message to his WhatsApp did not deliver. He previously told reporters that he did not scam Laura or anyone else, and alleged that OCCRP’s documentary was a “targeted plan” to destroy his reputation.

    The woman whom Context.ro identifies as Ana said she was invited by the fake prince to apply for a job at Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI), the humanitarian foundation launched by the actual crown prince’s father and ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Laura, meanwhile, was asked by a fake prince to help MBRGI invest millions of dollars in humanitarian aid in Romania. 

    Neither of the opportunities were real. After they paid 1,850 euros for “official vip humanitarian membership permit” cards, both received messages saying their cards had been granted, but required another payment to be activated. Ana paid another 10,550 euros ($12,045), while Laura paid 12,550 euros ($14,328).

    A fake prince had earlier steered their communications to Skype and later to WhatsApp, where he cultivated romances with them. 

    He told Ana that he wanted to visit her in Romania, but it would require Ana transferring 42,000 euros ($47,951). When Ana refused to send more money that she did not have, the fake prince texted her: “Now you’ve lost me and the 13,000 euros you have paid.” 

    While Ana stopped at that point, Laura continued deeper into the scam, exchanging thousands of messages over two years with the fake prince and even meeting his “financial manager” in London to facilitate opening a bank account.

  • Afghan Volunteer Women‘s Association

    The Afghan Volunteer Women‘s Association (AFV) is a humanitarian aid organization
    that has been working towards peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan since 1992.
    Our projects that are mainly in the rural areas, focus on supporting women and children.
    Our strategy is help for self-help.