Hello Fraud Fighters 👋
I hope you are having a super holiday season and ready for a great new year! Did you happen to catch the latest “Klarna Glitch”?
Its all over social media and I think its ’s exposed a major hole in BNPL that could result in some big losses. Check out the story below.
Let’s get to the top stories this week
Fraud News Roundup 🗞
BofA Employee Busted - Mario Martinez was arrested for stealing close to $500,000 from an elderly client who thought of him as a “good friend” of hers.
DOJ Bust Massive Bank Account Takeover Network - The DOJ took down a website and seized a database of customer credentials used to defraud banks across the US.
Viral Video Exposes Ghost Daycare Centers - A viral video posted by a YouTuber who visited empty daycare centers that billed the government for millions is adding to the outrage of Minnesota’s $9 billion fraud problem.
Gamers Delight - Hackers breached the Video game Rainbow Six and granted players over 2 billion credits worth over $13 million. Gamers loved it, but the company took the servers down to stop the fraud.
Auto Gang Sent Cars To Middle East - A car theft ring fraudulently loaded cars on to shipping containers and sent it to the Middle East, they lied to authorities and said they were shipping antifreeze.
Rampant Land Fraud - Police in Arizona say land fraud is running rampant. Since buyers typically pay cash, have no loans, and don’t occupy the vacant properties, it makes them ripe targets.
New Arrest Scam Emerging - Scammers are mining public arrest records to target families of arrested people, posing as law enforcement and then demanding payment for fake "mandatory courses" that will help reduce jail time. The fraudsters find family connections through simple Google searches, then bombard relatives with calls.
$400,000 In Stolen Lobster - The growing problem of transport company impersonation hit CostCo hard as a treasure trove of fine lobster was hijacked mid-journey. The lobsters disappeared and Costco will never be able to claw them back.
Caning For Scams Starts Today - If you get caught scamming in Singapore, you will get 24 extremely painful lashes of the cane. And if you are a first-party fraudster who lets your bank account be used, you will face 12 lashes.
Saks Missed Fraud Red Flags - A Saks employee dubbed “The Fashion Whisperer” charged millions of dollars worth of merchandise to an elderly client with dementia and other victims are coming forward accusing Saks of missing red flags for years.
Goldman Sachs Law Firm Hacked - The bank said that client data was exposed when a law firm they work with got hacked.
BobDaHacker Is Back - He was gone for awhile but posting again transparently describing how he almost rickrolled 191,000 fans of Rick Astley on a band site called Bandsintown.
FBI Deepfakes Date Back Years - The FBI warned that malicious actors have been using deepfake AI voices to target government officials dating back to 2023. The scams include obtaining access to their contact lists, stealing their PII, and making introductions to the President.
79-Year-Old Fraudster - The old guy from Florida is accused of stealing $3.5 million from other elderly people in a massive tech support scam.
The Klarna Glitch Targets Buy Now Pay Later To Raid Best Buy Of All Their Top Electronics
A LinkedIn post from Gary Warner caught my eye this week.
A wave of new viral glitch videos is flooding TikTok and Telegram and its promising viewers free electronics from Best Buy.
In reality, scammers are using stolen identities to open fraudulent accounts on Klarna’s Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) service and claiming its a quick and easy hack to get “free” iPhones, iPads, electronics and sneakers that you don’t have to pay for.
The fraud follows the playbook of the infinite money “Chase Glitch” of last year with one major difference - this isn’t first party fraud, it’s classic third party identity theft with a twist. Fraudsters are buying Fullz with common names and exploiting BNPL’s week soft credit pull processes.
Company Recovers Smashed Laptop From River After Employee Fired For Leaking Data
An employee of Coupang (the Amazon of South Korea) smashed his laptop, threw it in a canvas bag, weighed it down with rocks and tossed it into a river to hide evidence of his data theft.
From that computer he had fraudulently accessed 33 million customer accounts and leaked data on 3,000 of those customers.
As Bombs Fall, Scam Workers Can’t Leave Their Desks
In Cambodia bombs are hitting scam centers each week, yet scam workers who are often held against their will are not allowed to leave their desk and are told to keep scamming.
The brutality and suffering in Cambodia to continue carrying out these scams is unreal.
Lloyds Bank Uses 15 Million In Seized Fraud Money To Build Fraud Programs
Lloyds is using £15 million in seized criminal funds to fight the fraudsters it stole the money from in the first place.
The UK bank, the only bank in the world that is using this novel technique, has funded initiatives that led to 113 arrests and helped 50,000 older adults avoid scams.
Now thats a clever new fraud fighting tactic!
Incredible Story - How A Woman Ran A North Korean Laptop Farm From Her Home
Christina Chapman, a suburban TikTok creator who ran a covert “laptop farm” from her Arizona home reveals all in this fascinating expose of how North Koreans are recruiting unsuspecting “partners” to facilitate their identity theft and spy operations.
The most amazing part of this documentary is all of the never before seen details of her journey from being an unemployed Tik Tok creator to embroiled in one of the biggest conspiracies of the year.
High Ranking Bank Exec Charged With Drugging Women And Paying Victim to Lie to FBI
By day he worked as a high ranking bank executive, by night he lead a sick double life and has been charged with drugging woman and amassing a trove of child pornography.
Edward Gene Smith used his power and his position to take advantage of vulnerable people - he has been arrested and could serve years in prison now.
Drones, GPS Trackers and Crypto Kidnapping - How One Gang Stalked A Victim For Weeks
The spam calls wouldn’t stop.
Someone claiming to be from Google Support kept calling asking questions about his accounts. He ignored them, not realizing the callers were just beginning a criminal operation that would soon put drones over his house and a tracking device under his car.
Violent criminal gangs are turning to crypto-kidnapping to steal seed phrases from victims and they are going to extreme lengths.
Coinbase Customer Service Agent Bribed And Sold Customer Data To Hackers, Then They Demanded $20 Million Ransom Payment
In May of this year, a customer service agent at Coinbase in India was bribed by hackers and released more than 70,000 customer records to them.
After the hackers gained access to the data, they flipped the script and demanded a $20 million ransom from the company.
The scheme cost Coinbase $355 million, with the company reimbursing affected customers
I guess outsourcing to India didn’t save them much money did it?
New Research - Every Scammer In The Pig Butchering Compound Uses ChatGPT
New research has dropped a bombshell finding - 100% of romance scammers now use ChatGPT daily.
In blind tests, AI scam agents earned more trust than human con artists, with victims 2.5x more likely to obey their requests.
Even worse? Safety filters caught zero scam conversations. Researchers notified AI companies but nothing appears to be happening at this point.
That’s a wrap for another week of fraud trends and stories.
Happy New Year Folks 🥳