Hello Fraud Fighters,
Let’s just get right to the top stories this week. 👇
Fraud News Roundup 🗞
First Fully Autonomous AI CyberAttack - Claude AI was used by Chinese Hackers to pull off a massive cyberattack against 30 companies. It was a first of its kind, and an ominous sign of what’s to come.
Jaguar Landrover Lost £196 Million - The company has slid to a massive quarterly loss after a data breach torched the company’s financials.
100 Scam Buildings Demolished - Reports indicate the Myanmar military has taken heavy machinary and bombs to about 100 scam buildings bringing them to the ground.
Visa’s Vamp Hitting Merchants - An industry expert reports that many Shopify accounts are being terminated due to merchants failing Visa’s new fraud program thresholds.
Novel Approach - Google is employing a novel approach to phishing and is suing the hackers responsible for the EZPass scams in civil court.
BofA Employee Facilitated Scams - An employee Rongjian Li, facilitated millions in scammed money laundering for fraud rings and was terminated for fraud.
Starlink Usage Plummets In Myanmar - A positive sign in the war on Pig Butchering, Starlink use has been cut in half in Myanmar as the US and
Latest AI Scam Is Raw Food - Scammers are using AI deepfake photos of their DoorDash deliveries to make it look like they got raw food so they can get fraudulent refunds.
The “Unstoppable Scammer” - The Tinder Swindler brags that he is “unstoppable” in a jailhouse interview and then he released just hours later to continue scamming other people.
Another Mortgage Fraud - Another one bites the dust in the Mortgage Fraud Roundup of politicians.
Credit Washing Alerts - It’s no secret that the credit bureaus have been hammered by credit washing for years. TransUnion is finally hitting back with a new credit washing solution to alert lenders when the identify people cleaning their credit excessively.
4,300 Fake Booking Sites - Russian hackers have stood up a massive number of fake booking sites, targeting travelers who have existing reservations for hotels. They are phishing sites that steal card details.
Shoebox Of Sticky Notes - A receptionist was arrested for stealing 200 credit card numbers, which she wrote down on 1,631 sticky notes and stored in a shoebox. She placed over 20,000 fraudulent orders on those card numbers over the last 5 months.
The $70 Million Fortune Teller Fraud - Anya Phan and her daughter Thi Ta orchestrated an astonishing Fortune Telling Scam that mushroomed into Ghost Car Loan Fraud, massive insider bank fraud and a whole host of other surprising schemes.
Russian Black Widows - Russian women are duping new soldiers into getting married to collect the $200,000 payout if and when they are killed in battle.
Trump Pardoned Him, Now He’s Back In The Slammer - Trump pardoned him back in 2021, now Eli Wienstein is back in jail for 37 years again.
One Hell of A Scary Cyberstalker - A deranged fitness buff and podcaster would go into gyms, approach women he had never met, and declare them his “future wife” - that's when things got even weirder.
China says US Hacked $13 Billion - China claims that US illegally hacked the billions in Bitcoin that were confiscated from Chen Zhi weeks ago.
He Faked An Injury At Fidelity Bank - Catch this bank scammer who faked a leg injury and wore a neck brace to carry out a bank heist. He fled the scene, running after he got the money.
Weeping Virgin Mary Scam - Giselle Cardia collected $365,000 in money from victims after she placed “pig blood” on a Virgin Mary statue to make it appear it was a mystical sign.
Scam Center Strike Force - The US is going all in on Pig Butchering bosses, establishing a task force that vows to use the full force of the US government to find and eradicate them.
Casino Crackdown - Cyberscam monitor reports on widespread police activity shutting down shady casinos in Cambodia as cars burn and crowds gather.
“Takahiro Karasawa” - For 13 years, bomb hoaxes have been called in all across Asia bearing the name of this man - he claims his identity has been stolen.
Bot Attacks Rising In Advance Of Black Friday
With massive Bot Attacks on Azure and Cloudflare going down this morning, experts worry that we may be in for an interesting Black Friday.
Security researchers are noting a significant increase in bot attacks on certain high-value items online.
They Credit-Washed Victims With Fake ID Theft Claims, Then Got Straw Mortgages For Them
Two brothers-in-law set up a business called “Jeff Funding” in a strip mall in Texas and ran it like a criminal empire - recruiting people with bad credit, filing fake identity theft claims, and then burying the victims in crushing mortgage debt.
They hired people in Mexico to file the fake FTC identity theft reports because it was cheaper labor.
Check Fraud SARs Show Check Fraud Is Dropping
A bit of good news, as SARs roll in each month, it appears that Check Fraud cases will likely fall to the lowest levels since 2021. With cases reported through August 2025, it looks like banks are getting a better handle on the problem.
She Was “Digitally Arrested” For 6 Months And Lost $3.8 Million
A Digital Arrest from hell. This woman spent 6 months in confinement under constant “Skype” surveillance and sent 187 wire transfers to fraudsters.
New Black Friday AI Problem- Who Is Responsible For AI Agent Purchases?
This Black Friday will mark a significant turning point for merchants. Not only will they be dealing with VAMP’s new thresholds, but they will also need to figure out a whole host of new issues as consumers use AI agents to make purchases for them online.
Telegram Mass Channel Takedown - Largest In History
Telegram moderators just blocked over 519,000 groups and channels, according to Josh Lefkowitz, CEO at Flashpoint.
It represents the single largest takedown in history. Score another win for the good guys.
This International Space Station First Party Fraud Case Is Out Of This World
Now I have heard everything.
A woman claimed that her husband guessed her bank login password while he was living on the International Space Station - some 250 miles above earth’s surface.
She claims he committed bank fraud by draining her account, which was all one big lie. Now she is facing 5 years in prison.
Scam Compounds Turn To Organ Harvesting
Reports from The Sun and circulating through Telegram news channels indicate that Scam Compounds are increasingly turning to organ harvesting to generate revenue.
They even conduct blood tests on new arrivals and try to match them to black-market demand.
The Fraudster Named “John Doe” Has Stolen So Many Identities That No One Knows His Real One
A career criminal in New York, who has cycled in and out of prison dozens of times and has stolen so many identities over 3 decades that now the court can only refer to him as “John Doe”.
He was sentenced this week for stealing three homes and is now headed to prison again.
First it was identity theft claims, then human trafficking, and now in 2025, the “Data Breach Hack” is spreading like wildfire.
How it works is credit repair companies will file disputes on all negative tradelines with credit bureaus and use the fact that they were part of a data breach so they can’t be held liable for their debt.
The Moment This $5 Billion Fraudster Was Arrested In Her Bed
It was a very bad day for , Chinese “Bitcoin Queen” Zhimin Qian when police broke down her door and arrested her in bed for her fraud that victimized over 128,000 victims in China.
Good riddance, hope she is locked up for a long time.
Fake AI Built Websites For….*checks notes* Tractor Scams Are The Latest Wave
Its strange to find out that completely AI Tractor Websites are popping up across many states to target victims into sending wire transfers to Russian scammers.
But its a trend. I highlighted Dalton Tractor earlier this year, but now more cases are popping up everywhere.
Famous “Influencer” Is Headed To Jail For Fraud Auto Loan Fraud Scheme
Scotty Huss is a popular Miami Influencer that is now headed to jail for two years for a compounding fraud that originally started with COVID loan fraud.
He might have gotten away with it, but after buying luxury cars and getting auto loans, he started to pay off the cars with fake checks - then he got arrested.
Scam Workers Revolt, Things Turn More Violent
More photos and videos coming out of Southeast Asia are showing scam workers revolting over poor treatment.
As they do they are facing severe backlash and violence for going against scam bosses. Reports of murder and disappearing people are increasing in the region.
Don’t forget to register for the Synthetic Identity Webinar on Wednesday at 9AM PST with David Maimon, Steve Lenderman and Dustin Eaton!
Thanks for tuning in again.
FrankonFraud