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- ⚠️ AI Fraudsters Are Pummeling Identity Checks With Deepfakes
⚠️ AI Fraudsters Are Pummeling Identity Checks With Deepfakes
Frank McKenna
June 17, 2025
Hi Fraud Fighters 👋
This week, we saw more bad news on how AI deepfakes impact identity, corroborating Visa’s findings that application fraud is surging, and more internal fraud at credit unions. Oh, and a bunch of other fraud, too.
Let’s get to the news!
Fraud News Roundup 🗞️
Bank EVP Kiting Scheme - The second in command at Bank of O’Fallon pled guilty to a check kiting scheme where he passed bad checks through his account. The bank lost $1.9 million. Read More
She Can’t Believe Wells Fargo Reported Her - for potential elder abuse when she transferred close to $1 million from her elderly mother’s account. I don’t know, I think Wells Fargo got it right. Read More
Internal Fraud At The SSA - An employee at the SSA would scan the Death Master File for recently deceased men and then recruit women with kids to file for death benefits. Read More
Bust Out Fraud Up 54% - Suspicious auto loan bust out is up over 54% this year driven by higher fraud ring activity. Read More
They’re Stealing Faces - Binance released a major alert to warn customers of a new threat. Scammers are impersonating Binance support staff and requesting face scans under the guise of security verification Read More
Postal Employee Bonanza - Two postal employees stole $80 million in treasury checks and then posted them on Telegram for sale. Read More
Organized Crime Behind Ghost Students - Socure analyzed 6,000 fraud applications submitted to colleges and found that individual fraud rings target colleges with synthetic identity applications in a massive fraud scheme. Read More
Munchausen By Proxy Horror Case - A Mother in Minnesota tortured her three children for years while defrauding Medicaid of $18,000 by fabricating their medical conditions. She forced blood withdrawal, unnecessary medical devices, and physical abuse while claiming disability payments Read More
Meta Sues Prolific Nudify App - Meta is suing CrushAI for circumventing their ad controls by creating dozens of advertising accounts and then frequently changing domain names to avoid detection. Meta says they have new AI to spot this going forward 👀 Read More
Better Emotions To Scam You With - ElevenLabs launched powerful new voice cloning with a huge range of emotions like anger, sadness, fear, which is destined to make those scams even more believable. Read More
$18 Million in SIM cards For Phone Scam Farm - Police busted a massive fraud ring in Asia after they attempted to buy a massive number of SIM cards to be used in a massive bot operation scamming people. Read More
"We’re Being Attacked All The Time” - Banks in UK report they are fighting a relentless attack on their networks with HSBC stating that their single biggest expense is cybersecurity. Read More
Scammers Resort To Death Threats - A Reddit user who refused to give money to a scammer started to receive violent text threats on his life. This is where scams are heading. Check it out
Just Can’t Stop Em - You just can’t kill Huione Guarantee. The banned Pig Butchering Boss Money Laundering network is going at full speed despite Telegram ban and FiCEN blacklisting. Read More
Fake Paystub Arrest! - A judge ordered a not-so-smart scammer to be immediately arrested after she supplied Fake pay stubs she created on QuickBooks in court to prove she was still working. Watch the video
Synthetic Document Fraud Surges 200% Fueled By AI and Deepfakes
A newly released report by Sumsub claims that synthetic document fraud worldwide has tripled in the last year. They analyzed millions of verification checks from the first quarter and captured a massive spike in AI-generated identity Cards, passports, and biometric data.
After creating the fake identity cards, they use deepfake AI to bypass the KYC and liveness checks, which saw a 1,100% increase.
This data is eerily similar to Visa’s report last week which warned that digital identity fraud and documentation fraud were up over 200%
Inside Vietnamese Phone Farms Were Fakery Is Grown
Somewhere in Hanoi, hundreds of smartphones line metal shelves, each blinking as they change screens hundreds of times a minute. Large fans keep the room cool to prevent the devices from overheating.
Your watching a phone-farm in action and it is just one of many sprouting up in Vietnam that are being used in everything from engaging in massive disinformation campaigns on Facebook to helping Pig Butcherers in Cambodia scale up their operations.
New LinkedIn Video Recruiting Scam Is So Good It Could Work on You
A sophisticated new LinkedIn video phishing scam is making the rounds, and it is so well hidden that it might work on you.
The scam works like this. 👉️ You get an email from a fake recruiter with a lucrative job offer, and once you show interest, they send you a “video interview” link. Once you click it and allow camera permissions, the malicious site steals your browser data, records video footage for deepfakes, or compromises your accounts.
“Notorio” Fraud Scams Are Surging After Immigration Crackdown
Scammers in Los Angeles are taking advantage of immigrants’ fears and fueling a spike in “Notorio Fraud”. Scammers contact immigrants promising that they can get them authorization to stay in the country and con the victims out of as much as $100,000.
“You’re A Good Pig, Just Not Fat Enough”
Talk about an insult to injury, these scammers have no heart.
Court documents tell the story of a man named S.W. who was scammed by a woman he met on LinkedIn named Kristina Tian.
After he sent $500,000 to invest, the FBI called him and alerted him that Pig Butcherers were scamming him. They told him to stop sending money.
After that call, he turned to WhatsApp, where “Kristina” called him a “Good Pig” and sent smiley faces back at him, saying she was “glad to use his life savings.”
Modern Day Catch Me If You Can Con Artist Pulled Off Fraud Scheme To Get 120 Free Flights
Tiron Alexander worked for American Airlines but created a scheme claiming that he worked for seven airlines. He created 34 different badge ID numbers and booked over 120 flights to parts worldwide.
Unlike Frank Abagnale, he didn’t just gallop through the airport in a pilot’s uniform using his charm to get on the flight; he used a website reserved for pilots and flight attendants. He used another employee’s login to a website to create the applications for free airline flights.
He was arrested trying to board a flight from SFO to Australia.
Not Again! 🤦Hackers Claim To Have 64 Million T-Mobile Records
So sad. Hackers now claim they have 64 million fresh new records from T-Mobile.
T-Mobile says it’s fake news and denies that it has been breached. However, they are breached an average of two times a year, so who knows, right?
How This TikTok Human Trafficking “Hack” Erases Boost FICO Scores With Fraud
TikTok has become ground zero for new credit washing scams that have “Finfluencers” filing fake human trafficking claims for their customers to sweep their bad debt away.
Credit Washing has increased more than 160% since 2023 and I believe this new Fake Human Trafficking Hack is one of the primary drivers.
Neches Federal Credit Union Employee Pulls Off A $1 Million Fake Loan Scheme.
Another Credit Union internal fraud scheme. They keep coming.
An assistant branch manager, Billy Thomas, worked with an external fraudster to steal members' identities and apply for loans using forged documentation and invoices.
Thomas defrauded members who he had helped get real loans. Afterwards, he created fake loans with his fraud partner, and they divided the loan proceeds.
The Billion Dollar Blindspot 💰️ A Webinar For Credit Union Fraud Fighters
Credit Unions are being hit with fraud more than ever and these three fraud fighters - Justin Davis, Scott Ellefson and Hailey Windham of CU Fight Fraud aren’t going to sit around and just watch it happen 💪 . Monday June 23rd, 2025!
That’s all for this week.
Have a great week, fraud fighters!