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  • 🚀 The Laptop Farm That Helped Funnel $7 Million For North Korean Nukes

🚀 The Laptop Farm That Helped Funnel $7 Million For North Korean Nukes

Author

Frank McKenna
May 21, 2024

Hey There, Fraud Fighters 👋 

When I started this newsletter as a side publication to my blog, FrankonFraud, I never thought I would learn so much or discover so many places to dig up intel on fraud.

I now scan over 30 different sites and hundreds of court filings as well as using a bot to pull in and scan ~ 250,000 Telegram messages, all to gather signals on what’s happening in fraud. And that doesn’t include information from my FOF Tipsters 🕵️ đŸ™ .

  • Stolen Voices - Scarlett Johansson says Open AI’s Sam Altman stole her voice and is using it as “Sky” even after she declined to let him use her voice.

  • Inny Fraudster - An employee of FCF Credit Union was recruited to help a fraud ring make ACH transactions out of customer accounts. He siphoned off over $2 million from member accounts and was paid $100,000 in bonuses for his help.

  • Fake Student Wave - An official says that 25% of students in California’s Community colleges are fake, and the number has spiked in the last year. Experts suspect they are after the financial aid checks.

  • Free Laundry—Two college kids uncovered a security flaw that allows someone to get free laundry from up to a million Internet connection machines at colleges and apartments.

  • Subprime Auto Meltdown - Subprime borrowers that took out Auto loans defaulted at record levels in April. Given the high levels of fraud in subprime are things going to get worse?

  • Meta Disgrace - The FBI arrested a man who was disseminating AI-generated sexual abuse imagery of children on Instagram. Why can’t Meta get a handle on this?

  • SS7 Attacks Are Real - Last year, I wrote about SimSwap.SU that was using SS7 to track, divert OTP’s and even swap sims. Now, this year, a US Government cyber expert has broken ranks and confirmed that SS7 is indeed happening and being used to spy on Americans and track their locations.

  • Tenacious - A Boston Globe reporter spent two years tracking down the person that stole his identity, it wasn’t easy but he stayed on the case.

  • Russian Deepfakes - AI-manipulated deepfakes on Chinese sites portray young Russian women to promote Russian Chinese ties and to make money, but the New York Times, says they are all deepfakes.

  • Enumeration Attacks - Visa released a new AI called Visa Account Attack Intelligence (VAAI) to CNP bot attacks. Visa says, the new model is hyper-precise, reducing false positives by 85%

  • DeadBots - Researchers are warning that humans could end up being haunted by AI ghosts of dead loved ones, another dangerous consequence of the proliferation of AI.

  • ARUP Scoop - The company behind that $25 million deepfake video call loss came forward revealing new details on one of the most fascinating and largest AI deceptions of all time.

  • The Great Voice Hiest - Two men are suing AI firm LOVO for stealing their voices and adding them to their speech empire. Apparently, they were both hired via FIVR for a few hundred bucks to provide a sample of their voice, but LOVO then put the voices in their library.

  • Bad Idea - There are a lot of critics on the proposed UK law to reimburse victims, including the City Minister who considers it flawed.

Bank on Hailey 🤘 – Talking Lone Wolf Fraud Fighters

Guess who was on the newest fraud podcast everyone’s buzzin’ about 🐝 ?

That’s right. I was lucky enough to be the second guest on the Hailey Banking on Fraudology podcast, where we told stories about Lone Wolf Fraud Fighters.

Bank on Hailey 🤘 – Talking Lone Wolf Fraud Fighters

Have you heard of the new fraud podcast that everyone is talking about? It's called Banking On Fraudology, hosted by Hailey Windham.

Fraud Expert - Lloyds Is Failing At Fraud

Fraud expert Jason Costain, the former Head of Fraud for Natwest, RBS, and other banks, says Lloyds TSB is failing at APP fraud and letting money flow into organized criminals’ pockets. He points to one chart that he thinks proves it.

Their average loss rate on APP fraud tops all banks in the UK, meaning that TSB is allowing its customers to send proportionately more money to scammers than any other UK bank.

However, not everyone agrees with him pointing to TSB’s track record of refunding more customers for scams than any other bank. 94% of TSB victims had their money returned last year.

Costain says that TSB’s refund policy is nothing more than a “media play” and that refunds have been steadily dropping—now down to 91%.

TSB is failing at fraud and here's why...

When a bank promises to refund all victims of fraud, is it ok for them not to bother with adequate fraud defenses?

29 Second Video Shows How Pig Butcherer’s Are Now Using AI

A 29-second stunning video reveals that Pig Butcherers are making major advancements in the use of AI. 👉️ You can watch the video here.

Pig-butchering crime syndicates are hiring computer engineers whose sole job is to improve their scams with AI. A video advertisement for AI face-swapping tech is making the rounds, showing how fast a scammer can change their appearance and conduct video calls with victims.

Pig Butchering Ops Using Incredible AI Technology

AI tools such as face-swapping and chatbots are being used by South-East Asia's crime syndicates to make their scams more efficient and effective. However, some operations appear to be having less success with the new tech than others.

She Ran a Laptop Farm For North Koreans From Her Home On The Outskirts of Phoenix

Christina Chapman lived in the quiet town of Litchfield, Arizona, not exactly the place you would expect would be the center of a North Korean identity theft racket designed to fund their nuclear missiles.

Last week, she was arrested for running a massive laptop farm, hosting 90 computers for North Koreans working as IT workers for major US companies. US companies that thought they were hiring remote employees to work from home sent those laptops to her. Instead, they found themselves in her laptop farm while North Koreans funneled the salaries back home to their own country. Over $7 million was raised for North Korea in the scheme.

But it gets worse; she was also helping those workers steal the identities of US citizens - over 60 victims and counting. Check out the indictment right here; it’s a fascinating read.

She Ran A Massive Laptop and ID Theft Op For North Koreans

Over $7 million raised for Nuclear Missles

MIT Bros Steal $25 Million in 12 Seconds

Here comes the Netflix special. Two smart brothers conducted an elaborate heist in April 2023, stealing $25 million from traders in just 12 seconds by fraudulently gaining access to pending transactions and altering the movement of cryptocurrency.

Gone in 12 Seconds

Federal prosecutors called the scheme “novel” and said the case marked the first time that such a fraud had ever been the subject of US criminal charges.

Chop Shop Had Inside Connection To Get Fake Titles

In Florida, Tag Agencies were created to help people conveniently register their cars and get titles. It works well, but it can also be rife with fraud risk.

And that is exactly what happened last week. A clerk, Katherine Moran, was arrested for helping a car theft ring create over $3 million in fake titles. She would find salvaged cars that were totaled, steal the VINs, and then create new titles for the stolen cars. She worked for Baumgardner Auto Tag Agency which has been in business for over 70 years, hurting their reputation deeply.

The chop shop would send her $800 via Zelle for every title she created.

Chop Shop Had Inside Connection

A clerk at a Miami auto tag agency was arrested after the bust of a high-end chop shop uncovered a more than $3.3 million title fraud scheme, authorities said.

Raffile - Yahoo Boys Run Extortion Scams Openly On Facebook, And Others

Paul Raffile, the Cyber Intelligence Analyst whose offer was rescinded by Meta two weeks ago for criticizing the platform’s handling of extortion scammers, was featured in both The New York Times and The Guardian this week.

He’s blowing the whistle to expose and stop the flagrant and vicious extortion scams on the world's largest social media platforms.

‘Chelsea’ Asked for Nude Pictures. Then the Sextortion Began.

Young men are being tricked into sending naked pictures to scammers pretending to be women — who then demand money. The consequences can be devastating.

If you want to see what fraudsters are interested in, head to Telegram. “KYC,” or Know Your Customer, is trending big time on the top 20 fraud channels right now.

Documentation, software, and methods designed to bypass selfie verification and identity checks online are hot 🔥.

Don’t sleep on your KYC strategies right now. Fraudsters are actively probing and sharing all sorts of loopholes and exploits. Check out the trending chart on mentions here 👇️ 

El Swapo’s Crew 👿 Traveled All Over the US To Swap Sims and Stole $400 Million.

Chicagoan Robert Powell, also known as ElSwapo, organized a roving massive sim swap operation. They would create fraudulent identity cards and impersonate the victims at AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile stores.

After swapping SIM, they would use it to steal Crypto from victims’ accounts. According to the indictment, $400 million was stolen from victims over several hours between November 11 and 12, 2022.

One of the fraudsters, Emily Hernandez, pleaded guilty last week.

The Indictment - They Called Him El Swapo

Well, that’s a wrap on another week. I appreciate you reading this and spending a bit of time catching up on fraud trends with me.

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Best,