One NZ man vs. Pakistani scammers making millions on fake ghostwriting deals

A New Zealand-based man is taking on "publishing" syndicates that use cheap Pakistani labor, fake websites, and AI to scam consumers and exploit workers.

This is a big story about scams being run from Texas and Pakistan estimated to run into tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars, viciously defrauding Americans with false hopes of publishing bestseller books (a scam you’d not think many people would fall for but is surprisingly huge). In January, three people were charged with defrauding elderly authors across the United States of almost $44 million—by “convincing the victims that publishers and filmmakers wanted to turn their books into blockbusters.”

Danny de Hek is sensitive to stories that seem too good to be true. He was raised a Jehovah’s Witness and then shunned by family and friends after he had premarital sex. Two members of his family committed suicide, and he stopped subscribing to the idea that a made-up religion would offer salvation when it was tearing apart his family.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, de Hek’s in-person networking business shuttered, and a friend turned him on to a cryptocurrency investment opportunity that he thought would be a good investment. When de Hek looked into it, it appeared to be a Ponzi scheme that did not have any real products or services, just people getting paid to recruit more people into the scheme. People were incinerating their savings by sending funds into the void.

Because de Hek had to find his own belief system when he left his religion, he thinks he is probably more discerning than the average Internet user. He began finding many more schemes and publicizing them on a YouTube channel. For his work in exposing frauds, the New York Times called him the “Crypto Ponzi Avenger.”

Beyond crypto scams, he has turned his focus to all kinds of online fraud victimizing people—including a type of fraud I found in my inbox.

In April, I received the below email from someone named “Taylor R.” She claimed that someone had submitted a story about me to their ghostwriting firm in Texas. She was wondering if I wanted to engage her firm to ghostwrite my autobiography.

I found their website, which displayed a series of seemingly fake names (like Jacob Taylor) and absurdly written bios like: “When she’s not immersed in a stack of potential bestsellers, Taylor is busy perfecting her latte art and debating the merits of classic literature with her cat” and “When not writing stories that captivate, Emily enjoys knitting intricate patterns and hosting elaborate themed dinner parties.”

When I searched LinkedIn for “Chronicle Associates”—the alleged name of the publishing house that Taylor R.’s email address is linked to—there were no apparent employees, only generic posts every two weeks with quotes from Jean-Paul Sartre, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison.

The email I received was from the domain ForgottenMyStoryTriumph[.]co. When visiting this website domain visitors are redirected to yet another website ChronicleAssociates[.]com. On this website there is an address “2401 Fountain View Dr. Ste 464, Houston, TX 77057 United States”—a virtual office address used by many companies.

At the same address is another company, BIXBITE MARKETING LLC, which is incorporated by several individuals in Karachi, Pakistan. The Texas address used by this company is 21739 Canyon Terrace Lane, Katy, TX 77450—which links to an individual who also resides in Texas and has set up many companies for a large Karachi based company called Intersys, owned by a prominent businessman in Pakistan, Azneem Bilwani. Azneem Bilwani was publicly named and sanctioned by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office for running egregious trademark registration scams that victimized American business owners who were misled into registering worthless trademarks.

On May 7, 2025 the information security expert and highly respected security blogger Brian Krebs linked Azneem Bilwani, Intersys, and a separate company from Pakistan called Digitonics Labs to a fentanyl analogue trafficking indictment announced by the U.S. Department of Justice.

In any case: it was apparent that the operation was a scam, but also the websites, emails, and list of case studies on the site might appear legitimate to someone unfamiliar with book writing. I could imagine an unwitting target feeling flattered that that someone thought they had an “incredible life story”—and paying money to make it happen.

When I reconnected with de Hek the other week, he told me that this is the exact type of scam he has been turning his attention to and doing so with unusual gusto.

According to de Hek, these are scam publishing houses with headquarters in Pakistan and a growing presence in Texas. In this scam, “story selection” professionals like Taylor R.—who are likely underpaid workers in Pakistan—make contact with “customers” with the promise of writing and selling a book. The salespeople engage in numerous upsells once they have someone hooked, but then never deliver any actual book or writing product.

I wondered whether the images on Chronicle Associates’ site were AI-generated. So de Hek conducted a reverse image search of a writer on the site named “Emily Thompson.” It turns out that “Emily Thompson” appears to be an actor named Normandy Wanberg with an IMDB page.

de Hek also found that “Jacob Taylor”—a “Project Manager” listed on Chronicle Associates’ site—is also listed as a reviewer of another product called Comicfy, that claims to “saves hours of lesson prep with AI-generated visual summaries.”

(Naturally, all of the testimonials on Comicfy are a perfect five stars.)

Hard Reset spoke with de Hek about tracking over 150 online scams, remaining calm in the face of physical and financial threats, and collaborating with Google’s Project Shield to defend his work from cyber-attacks.

AS: You were previously focused on crypto, but now have turned most of your attention to this new scam, fake publishing houses. How do these “publishing houses” work?

DD: The scammers will approach someone and say that they’ll ghostwrite their autobiography. The writing of the book is pitched as a certain set amount, and then there’s an advertising budget. Like a lot of online scammers (romance scammers, crypto scammers) they go for correspondence to make someone feel “seen” or important, and build subsequent trust. If they can get someone to commit $1,000 to get the ball rolling, they’re oftentimes committed to seeing it through.

AS: Can you contextualize the scale of this operation?

DD: The operation has over 1,000 website addresses pretending to be publishing houses and other scams. Like the one that contacted you, all of them look somewhat professional. Even the smallest groups behind these appear to make between $700,000-$1,000,000 dollars a month and most of that is profit.

We—myself and various informants whose identities I keep confidential to protect their lives—believe that these operations generate billions of dollars, especially given that Pakistan’s IT export revenue is measured at $3.4 billion.

They are not just exploiting potential author “customers,” people like you. They are recruiting Pakistani people who make $4 a day, with little other opportunity for economic mobility. They offer them salesperson jobs, dangling a carrot of $2,000 a month. But the catch is that if they don’t make their sales quota, the bosses hawk back their pay.

I’ve never busted people who are so powerful with money. The people at the top of this are based in Pakistan and have $4 million car collections as opposed to their workers who may have previously made just $4 a day. Some of the software houses have gotten busted, so they have decided to decentralize their operations. Oftentimes, they bribe the local police. Now I’m assuming that they have set up companies in Texas as part of their decentralization plan.

One informant who I’ve been in touch with told me that his wife would kill him if she knew he was talking to me. This man has 30 people on staff involved with these sales ploys, and he claims that he’s just a “small player,” a “nobody” in the ecosystem.

AS: $3.4 billion is a pretty unbelievable number. How are they able to manipulate people so well?

DD: A lot of it is building trust and communication with the right target—potentially someone who is lonely or experiencing cognitive decline.

Recently at a global crime summit I met an amazing fraud-fighter named Erin West, who is going after human trafficking compounds. She told me about a romance scam where two married men sent $1 million to online “paramours.” Both of those men had Alzheimer’s, and likely were targeted for that reason.

AS: The Wall Street Journal recently came out with an article about Meta and how it’s not doing enough to fight scams on WhatsApp and Instagram. The article talks about Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest, who became personally frustrated by the use of his image and voice by fake advertisers.

What else do we need to know about this world of online fraud?

DD: There’s a playbook for a lot of these fraudulent entities. They will set up a fake company with three domain names: the first is the multi-level marketing scheme, the second is the payment gateway, and the third is the company brand affiliated with the set-up, with no documented link back to the initial MLM.

This is a huge loophole that is now allowing scam companies to sell their apps on the App Store. For example, scam companies can pass five company-branded apps through the App Store that are not legitimate companies. The app is called the same name as the scam, but the actual company taking in the money is documented was having a different name.

A lot of crypto companies are also selling credit cards, incentivizing sales people to sell cards and earn $500-$1,000. But it is a trap to gain KYC (know your customer) intelligence: once someone signs up for the credit cards, everything is exposed.

From Zoom and Twitter/X to Apple and Instagram, there is not enough work being done to stop these fraudulent entities from accessing platforms.

AS: Crypto has proven itself to be somewhat of a violent world—in Manhattan, an Italian man was tied up and tortured for his crypto wallet information; and in Paris the pregnant daughter of a crypto exchange owner was almost abducted by two masked men. You even describe these Pakistani publishing houses as “cartels.” Are you ever afraid?

DD: I’m protected because I’m in New Zealand and live in a private place. But sometimes I get paranoid. A little over a year ago I was chased around the streets of Christchurch. I thought that maybe someone was tracking my license plate number, that they are following me. But it just happened being an irate driver.

A few years ago, I was sued for defamation in a $3.4 million lawsuit. I had made a YouTube video about a man who launched a crowdfunding campaign to explore live dinosaurs and dog-sized tarantulas. He had a habit of launching Kickstarter campaigns to bankroll far-fetched endeavors: one would fund the creation of a space invader video game, where players could win real gold. He also had civic aspirations, appointing himself as the president of a fabricated country called the United Allied States, a country where there would be no taxation.

My video explained a scheme called HyperTechnology and its digital cryptocurrency LunaOne. He claimed that all of the crypto was backed by gold, meaning he would need to have $10 billion worth of gold to put in a safe. But he had no mines, despite boasting a visitor center to a mine in South Africa. This scheme, however far-fetched it sounds, led to at several dozen retail investors, who had given him $75 to $237,420 in deposits. My research found that 11,000 people had signed up for LunaOne.

When I published the video, they tried some real scare tactics: including alleging that I was in bed with the White supremacist responsible for the mosque shootings. McCullah also hired Israeli lawyers to write up Google documents making up allegations about me.

But after we produced a 229-page document with overwhelming evidence, the plaintiffs filed a discontinuance, the case was dropped, and we were awarded $27,500. The judge said that too much time was spent fighting a frivolous lawsuit. The New Zealand Law Society Magazine and the University of Canterbury are doing case studies on what happened to me, and we’re petitioning to change the law.

More recently, my website (dehek.com) was taken down after a Pakistani scammer filed an AI-generated takedown request to WP Engine. But now, as of the last few days, Google Project Shield stepped in to protect me. They determined that my work is valuable independent journalism—the kind worth defending with the same tech that shields google.com, Election Watch, and major human rights organizations. It blocks DDoS attacks, filters out abuse, and makes sure that important stories stay online.

I’ve lost some platforms, but I’ve gained some things too. My website, where I unconventionally name and shame some of the people behind these scams, is now protected. I also coordinate with whistleblowers, victims, and law enforcement agencies like the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

AS: How can we better educate our friends and family about scams?

DD: Report fraudulent platforms when you see them. With the right voices, the right tools, and the right support—we can fight back.

Thanks for reading. If there are any online scams that you think we should cover—or that Danny should cover!—feel free to reach out to Hard Reset. I’m also at Signal at @aristeinhorn.17.