Hi from FrankonFraud,

I hope you had a fantastic Labor Day Weekend. Goodbye summer 🌴, hello fraud fighting fall 🌲 

Some interesting new BNPL scams are emerging out of Asia this week, and reports are that they are happening on hundreds of Facebook channels. Could they happen here someday?

Let’s check out the top stories this week!

• Zero Card Numbers—Mastercard is working towards eliminating all card numbers in online transactions in the next six years to prevent fraud.

• Jury Duty Scams - A new wave of Jury duty scams is being reported in North Carolina, North Dakota, Texas, and other states where callers say victims have a warrant for failing to report for duty.

• Mortgage Fraud - Drug networks in the Netherlands are turning to mortgage fraud, purchasing up to 8,000 homes in recent years.

• Breaking Bad Scam -Jessie Pinkman got scammed, and his 1969 Ford Torino was ripped by a shady mechanic who said he was fixing his car for a year.

• You have to be kidding - Unbelievably, over 2,000 websites containing child abuse imagery were used in the LAION training data set that AI solutions such as Stable Diffusion and Midjourney source. Those websites were removed this week.

• 1 in 10 - Middle and high school students know someone who has created deepfake nudes, and shockingly, 1 in 17 have been victims of sextortion attempts. New threats are evolving quickly in schools.

Warning: The Chase Glitch May Be Over, But Other Banks Should Be On Alert

It was mass hysteria. People were terrified of missing out on some free money over Labor Day weekend, so they flocked to ATMs to try to check for fraud.

People claim a “Chase Bank Glitch” was giving them access to thousands of dollars at ATMs in New York, but as it turns out, the glitch was nothing more than depositing fake checks and withdrawing the money before the checks bounced.

While the Chase Glitch is subsiding, here is a red flag warning for other banks 🚩 Watch out for copycats over the next several weeks. Deposit fraud attempts may increase as copycats exploit other banks with a similar scheme.

Click to Read 👇️ 

This Deepfake Livestream Fooled Thousands Of Viewers

It’s happening. Realtime deepfakes are the real deal and now we can see what the future will look like.

“Are you texting me right now?” one woman asked Elon Musk on a recent livestream she attended. Another asks, “Are you real?”.

He wasn’t. It was a complete deepfake, but you would swear it was real.

Over 8,000 people tuned into a deepfake livestream of Elon Musk, and many believed it was real. However, it was a deepfake almost perfectly carried out with the mannerisms, the South African accent, Elon’s unusual laugh, and gestures he makes.

Click to Read 👇️ 

Dramatic Tigran Gambaryan Video Highlights His Dire Situation

Dramatic video footage captures the plight of Tigran Gambaryan, who was forced to hobble into a courtroom after Nigerian officials claimed he could walk.

Click to Read 👇️ 

Welcome To Rocky G Cruella’s Darkside Jungle

Coupons are not just for penny pinchers; there is big money to be made in fraud for some, like Janet Bernal from San Antonio.

She started a Telegram channel called Darkside Jungle and charged people $75 to join and $100 a month to access thousands of coupons she created for big-name pharmacies, grocery stores, and retail stores. The coupons were all fake, causing retailers about $18 million in damages.

She was known on Telegram as “Rocky GCruella,” a persona that left a determined postal inspector stumped for four years as she tracked her activity.

Bernal made one big mistake that led to her downfall. She sent a “Tumbler” with her fingerprints to the postal inspector, which helped the investigator discover her true identity.

Click to Read 👇️ 

I’d Gladly Pay You Tuesday For A Scamburger Today 🍔 

Hundreds of Facebook groups are helping scammers use a Buy Now Pay Later to steal money from Southeast Asians. BNPL use is soaring there, but it’s also powering up scammers, who convince victims to use it to pay utility bills in exchange for quick cash.

The problem? The scammer gets the utility paid and then disappears, leaving the victim with an enormous BNPL debt to pay back.

Victims are lured in by the fact they can get cash today for debt that they will later pay back to the BNPL company.

Of course, Facebook is at the heart of many scams. One group - ShoppeeSPay Later, is mentioned as one of the groups where scammers have proliferated with cash-out offers. But there are hundreds more in operation.

Click To Read 👇️ 

Tapped Out - Tricky Hybrid Scam Drains Debit Cards At ATM Machines

Hybrid scams take victims through multiple phases. They take more time, but the payoff to the scammer is tenfold.

Now, researchers have found an incredibly sophisticated new hybrid scam technique that combines social engineering, phishing, and malware to drain victims’ bank accounts at the ATM Machine.

It goes like this 👇️ 

Malware will become an increasingly important part of imposter scams that will make it so much more difficult for banks to deal with. Thanks to fraud fighter Hailey Windham for the alert on this growing threat!

The Woman Behind Telegram KingPin’s Arrest

Her name is Johanna Brousse. She runs the ambitious J3 Cybercrime unit behind Telegram’s Pavel Durov's arrest. And she is doing it with a team of only five prosecutors. By comparison, countries like Switzerland have over 50 on their teams.

Citing Telegram’s “nonexistent" cooperation with authorities and the fact it is used for drug trafficking, fraud, and child pornography, the French government charged Durov last week - work that was primarily completed by her team.

Read about the fraud-fighting woman behind one of the year's biggest developing stories.

Click to Read 👇️ 

Police Investigator’s New Best Friend - Your Tesla

Did your Tesla witness a crime? If so, police in San Francisco may want to tow your car and get a court order to extract the video for their investigations.

On July 13 in Oakland, an argument between several people outside a beauty supply shop at 40th Street and Telegraph Avenue escalated when five of them drew guns and began shooting at each other, police said, killing a 27-year-old woman.

Oakland police officer Roland Aguilar obtained a search warrant to tow three vehicles, including a Tesla Model X. Weeks later, two men were charged with murder and a raft of other felonies in connection with the shooting. Probable cause declarations for their arrests referred to “high-definition quality surveillance footage” of the homicide.

Click to Read 👇️ 

Fake GPS and Screwber Used By 800 Uber Drivers in Massive Fraud

Two 50-year-old men from Queens devised a scheme so clever they thought they would never get caught. They sold hacked phones with outdated versions of the Uber App installed, allowing them to bypass Uber's security controls. Then, they installed apps called “Screwber” and “Fake GPS” on those phones and sold the phones to 800 Uber Drivers for $600.

Screwber would let drivers view passenger destinations before accepting rides, and Fake GPS would allow drivers to spoof their location as if they were in areas with surge pricing, netting them higher fares.

Click to Read 👇️ 

FetchBase Data Searcher Sells Access To Breached Data Trove for $25

It’s called IntelFetch.net. It’s on the open internet, marketed as “Providing Professional OSINT Tools Since 2023.” and a tool to be safe on the internet.

In their advertisements, they tout “Find out who anyone is!” and seem willing to sell it to anyone with the money.

It appears they have created a searchable mega-database by importing billions of breached data elements into a search engine. Daily, weekly, monthly, and lifetime subscriptions start at as low as $25.

With all this breached data, services like this will start emerging everywhere. Given they have zero data cost, it’s enormously profitable. But also dangerous!

That’s a wrap for another weekly edition of The Newsletter. I hope you have a fantastic week ahead fighting fraud.

FrankonFraud