Hey fraud friends 👋,

I hope you had a nice Memorial Day. And now summertime!

I live in San Diego, so here on the coast, we’re entering our “June Gloom” season, where the marine cloud layer sticks around for weeks on end 🌥️ . But nobody feels sorry for us San Diegans when we talk about the weather. I get it!

• High-Speed Pursuit - LA gang members that would steal checks and recruit people off Instagram who had “BofA Accounts more than two years old.” to deposit those checks were arrested after a high-speed car chase through Los Angeles.

• Micro Debit Bank Heist—Guilty verdicts are rolling in for a Las Vegas-based fraud crew that stole PII from Payday loan applicants and then proceeded to siphon millions from their accounts month after month. They hid the fraud for years by keeping chargebacks low with legit micro debits.

• Cybercrime Fighter Goes Bad—A cybercrime expert who trained police to fight cybercrime had a secret side hustle running a $100 million dark web drug site. Oh, he also extorted site users, saying he would expose them if they didn’t pay up 🫰 

• Feedzai Fraud Report - The company released an amazing 2024 UK Fraud Report showing fraud is declining.

• Strange Mystery Rings - Mysterious rings are showing up in women’s mailboxes across parts of the US. Experts believe it is a new clever barcode phishing scam.

• Dark Alliance - Chinese gangs and Mexican Cartels have established a mutually beneficial dark alliance; read how they do it.

• 22 Years a Mystery - As reported by CourtWatch, A man stole the identity and birth certificate of a deceased child to avoid deportation and went to great lengths to use it for over 20 years, holding jobs as a firefighter and even a paramedic.

• Deepfake Fine - The magician that used ElevenLabs to deepfake Biden’s voice may be fined $6 million for his fraud. He faces 13 felony counts for the cloned audio.

• 65X Higher Fraud Rate- A series of new Plaid bank account beacon alerts identify fraud indicators across 500 million connected bank accounts on their network, you just have to join their consortium to get them.

Deepfake Scam Used YouTube Videos To Train The Clone

Do you have any videos of yourself on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram? If you do, you could become a victim of this same type of fraud.

A scammer contacted a woman to buy some expensive art, and when she asked for video proof that he was real, he sent a deepfake video that he had created using an artist's online YouTube videos.

Click here or below to read

Pig Butchererd Bank CEO Is Guilty. Was “Master Manipulator”

A Bank CEO who fell for a Pig Butchering scam that toppled the bank has pleaded guilty.

“Shan Hanes is a liar and a master manipulator who caused Heartland Tri-State Bank to collapse. Even as he was squandering away tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency, Hanes orchestrated schemes to cover his tracks concerning the losses at the bank,” said U.S. Attorney Kate E. Brubacher.

Click here or image below to read

The Rabbit Company Is AI Washing And Hiding A $30 Million Scam

Stephen Findeisen, better known as Coffeezilla, says the Rabbit device that has raised over $65 million from investors and sold over 100,000 of their AI devices doesn’t contain any AI and that it is a company hiding a $30 Million Scam.

This story highlights that “AI Washing” is becoming a real concern for potential large fraud losses. AI washing is the deceptive practice of companies claiming their products use AI to mislead consumers and investors when in reality, no AI is involved

Click here or image below to read

From Rags to Riches: The Billion-Dollar Fraud Laundering Fast Food Worker

From living in a basement working for a fast food restaurant to a Harrods shopper buying some of London’s most expensive properties, Jian Wen's life dramatically turned as she became entangled in a massive money laundering scheme for fraudsters. She jet-setted around the world like royalty but had a devious secret.

She laundered over $5.6 billion in fraud proceeds and was nabbed after she attempted to buy several luxury properties, triggering a series of money laundering alerts at banks. She’s headed to prison for a long time.

Click Here or Image Below to Read

Is This Plumber A Fraud Serial Killer?

In the quiet town of Camarillo, California, a sinister tale has emerged, casting a dark shadow over the community. Rotherie Durell Foster, a 38-year-old unsuspecting plumber, has been linked to two murders.

The first was another fellow plumber, Jose Velasquez, whose body was found in the Santa Monica mountains. Velasquez was brutally attacked for his banking and financial information. The second was an elderly man, Bill Levy, who Foster poisoned and then drained his banking accounts.

The Ventura Country Sheriff’s Department held a press conference announcing the chilling murders last Wednesday.

How many more murders will be linked to Foster is anyone’s guess.

Cyberscam Slaves Jump From Buildings To Escape The Torture

It’s a harrowing life living as a scam slave in Cambodia, so much so that people are jumping from buildings to escape. Four people have reportedly been reported for jumping from the fourth floor of a scam center in Cambodia in the last week.

Click Here or Image Below to Read

Fraud Fighter Gambaryan Collapses in Court, Hospitalized

Gambaryan, the fraud fighter being held hostage in Nigeria after the government demanded $150 million from Binance, collapsed in court and was hospitalized after he fell severely ill.

His lawyers call his detainment “state-sanctioned hostage-taking,” and his wife says his imprisonment is unjust, stating that the conditions in Kuje Prison where he is being held are devistating.

Click here or the image below to read

$4,000 Theft At Car Dealership, Do The Police Believe Her? Do you?

A viral TikTok video with millions of views is making the rounds and creating quite a stir. The woman claims a dealership employee stole $4,000 in cash from envelopes she had left in the car.

It’s a 3-part video. I get the sense that no one believes her. But I do 🖐️ 

Part 1 - The Interview

@law_crime_us

#copsoftiktok #policeoftiktok #fyp

Part 2 - The Suspect

@law_crime_us

P.3 #copsoftiktok #policeoftiktok #fyp

Part 3 - She’ll Never Get It Back

@law_crime_us

P.2 #copsoftiktok #policeoftiktok #fyp

New Facebook Scam Is Turning Friendships Into Fraud

A new friendship scam is running rampant on Facebook, and the company is doing little to control it.

Here's how it works 👉️ After locking a user out of their account, the scammers begin impersonating the user and claiming an elderly parent has moved into long-term care and that they are selling off some belongings.

Click here or image below to read

What Is The Jeonse Scam Sweeping South Korea?

South Korea's rental housing market features a unique system known as "jeonse," in which tenants pay huge deposits—sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars—and then live rent-free for years before getting all their money back when they move out.

The problem is scammers are renting out properties they don’t own, collecting these large deposits, and leaving victims so distraught that many are committing suicide.

Click Here Or Image Below To Read

Thanks again for taking the time to follow fraud stories and trends with me.

Have a great week!

FrankonFraud