Hi Fraud Fighters 👋
Did you see how the story on how Meta’s fraud team was stopping so many scam ads that Zuck told them to stop? Read the story below.
Fraud News Roundup 🗞
Huoine Pay Shut Down - Cambodia shut down the scammers payment platform and liquidated it’s assets after a bank run last week led the company to freeze customer deposits.
The "Teleporting" Car Thief - A Florida man told police he didn't steal a BMW; instead, he said he "teleported" into it to save himself from aliens.
Fingerprint Fraud - Contrary to popular belief, biometrics are not fraud free. An interesting case out of Kuwait where people used silicon fake fingerprints to clock in and out of work.
Refund Fraudster Outed - How a “fashion whisperer carrying a lobster Louis Vuitton bag pulled off a $400k refund fraud. Featuring Karisse Hendrik!
Not Good A Sign - For the first time in history autonomous AI hacking agents beat skilled human hackers in a head to head test. The AI hackers were better than 90% of the human ones.
Thief Robbed by Another Gang - In a karmic twist, a thief in Bengaluru was robbed of his stolen gold by a rival gang just minutes after his own heist.
50 Times A Day - Scammers are contacting seniors 50-60 times a day to phish their details and fraudulently charge their Medicare accounts - the problem has spiked in last two months.
Fake Holiday Steaks - Scammers are sending fraudulent delivery notifications for perishable goods, such as "0maha Steaks" (spelled with a zero), to harvest credentials.
$1 Billion Saved - The Dept. of Education announced they blocked over $1 billion in attempted student aid fraud this year. They blame Biden’s 1% verification fraud strategy for the mess. I didn’t realize he wrote fraud strategies. 😆
DoorDash Driver From Hell - A viral video showing a DoorDash driver spraying a food delivery with Pepper spray after she didn’t get a tip which caused the customer to get violently ill is making the rounds.
480 Fraudulent Refunds - A car dealership employee cut 480 refund checks and sent them to her husband and son and stole more then $1 million from Brickell Motors in Miamo.
Bad Idea? - A son wants to clone his dead father's voice as a Christmas present for his sister, and everyone thinks it’s a horrible idea.
Fake Homeless AI Videos - A new prank viral trend of fake homeless people invading homes and other concerning activity is sweeping Tik Tok and is a precursor of bad things to come with AI.
$100M in New ARR - Socure making major moves announcing a massive $100 million in new revenue for 2025.
The Most Evil Thing - A TikTok star relays a pet scam from hell after his dog turned up missing and nowhere to be found in 4 days. Scammers all over the city found his flyers and hit him with scam after scam.
Meter Maid Viral Video Scandal - A newly hired parking enforcement officer is under fire for fraudulently ticketing a couple's car when their meter hadn’t expired. They caught it all on video.
Zuck Personally Ordered The Meta Fraud Team To Stop Fighting Chinese Scam Ads
In an explosive Reuters report, Mark Zuckerberg stepped in last year to shut down a successful fraud-fighting team at Meta after it cut Chinese scam advertising nearly in half.
Meta's anti-fraud team reduced fraudulent Chinese ads from 19% to 9% of revenue in China during the second half of 2024, but then he asked the fraud team to “pause” their work. Within months, the scam ads surged again and Meta made $18 billion in revenue.
Next Big Threat - Hackers Found a Way Inside Your Actual Banking App
Hackers are targeting legitimate banking apps, injecting malware, and tricking victims into downloading it.
Group-IB found 27 modified bank apps and 11,000 infections across Southeast Asia and its growing so fast it could come to the US soon.
He Called Microsoft for Help. Five Hours Later, $85,000 Vanished From His CitiBank Account
An 87-year-old man made one of the biggest mistakes in his life, and 5 hours later, he lost over $85,000 from his Citibank account.
When he needed help with his iPad, he found a tech support number on Google. Big mistake.
The scammer who answered the phone spent five hours building his trust, then drained his bank account.
Ghana’s Youngest Millionaire Used AI And Deepfakes To Pull Off $8 Million Fraud
He is a famous social media influencer in Ghana but he was also an expert in using AI to con woman into romance scams.
He used AI to create fake online accounts, create fake dating profiles, do deepfake calls and then extract millions from his victims.
Cybersecurity Firms Could Soon Get Paid to Hack America's Enemies
The Trump administration is opening a new market for private companies - launching offensive cyberattacks against foreign adversaries.
A new draft national cyber strategy calls for enlisting businesses to strike back against hackers who breach U.S. infrastructure.
A Banker And His Brother - Inside The $2.7 Million Wells Fargo Insider Fraud Case
A Wells Fargo banker used his job to open accounts using synthetic identities as well as the identities of disabled people in care facilities to deposit EIDL loan fraud proceeds.
They also opened accounts at Citibank and U.S. Bank to launder funds. When pandemic relief funds were disbursed, he and his brother obtained $2.7 million through sham loan applications, then spent the funds at casinos and on luxury cars.
Stuck in The Middle - Scam Workers Become Targets In Cambodia and Thailand War Conflict
The Thai and Cambodian war has taken a dark turn, putting scam workers' lives in danger, many of whom have been trafficked into the region.
At least 17 civilians have been killed and over 500,000 people have been displaced in the last week alone.
Researchers Fool AI Into Free Vacation, and Stolen Credit Cards
AI agents are so easily manipulated, it’s silly. Tenable researchers tricked a Microsoft Copilot Studio AI agent into leaking customer credit card numbers and changing a trip price to $0 using simple text prompts.
Super Cool Tech Helps You Stop Mom From Getting Scammed Remotely
Now this is progress! Truecaller just launched Family Protection, a feature that lets a person be the admin for scam-blocking for up to five household members.
The family administrator can receive alerts during suspicious calls hitting family members and then remotely end fraudulent ones.
The bad news is its only available in Sweden, Chile, Malaysia, and Kenya and on Android so far.
Dramatic Missile Attack Flyover On Cambodian Scam Center
Scam workers are being caught in the middle of war conflict in Southeast Asia. The following video was released on Telegram channels showing a dramatic missile attack by two planes.
She Lost $366 to Scammers. Then She Then She Lost $293,000 Trying to Get It Back
A woman in Malaysia lost a small amount and then spent close to $300,000 trying to get it back. Its a case of scammers scamming scammers.
That’s all for this week.
Hope you have a fantastic week fighting fraud and scams.