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Never Use This Rule In Your Fraud Strategy đź™…đź™…
Frank McKenna
November 14, 2023
Hey There from FrankonFraud,
It’s the ACFE’s International Fraud Awareness Week. The week when everyone is a fraud fighter! Download this “How To Be A Fraud Fighter” guide that you pass around to people in your company and raise everyone’s awareness!
So, what’s going on in new fraud trends for the week?
I got you covered right here. 👇️
Bank Fined For Credit Abuse Prevention Strategies
Company loses $36 Million in Deepfake scam
2,100 Banks start issuing Zelle Fraud Refunds
Houston PD Arrest a car buyer using a CPN
China arrest over 6,000 scammers
Fraud Factories Are torture chambers
Dude buys an island with PPP fraud money
The $250 Million Kit Kat Fraud Heist
Credit Repair firms driving up Synthetic Identity
College student was a professional refunder
Creepy Chatbots Play 20 Questions
Anti Fake Is Like CVV but for voice clones
Let’s get to the top stories now!
Company Loses $36 Million in AI-Fueled DeepFake Scam
If you ever thought that deep fake AI wasn’t actively being used to scam, think again.
It’s real. This week 43 people were arrested in Dubai for conducting a deepfake scam against two asian companies.
The suspects reportedly targeted the companies by hacking into emails between executives and branch managers.
Using AI-powered deepfake technology, police said the gang impersonated the company directors and replicated their voices to instruct branch managers to transfer $19 million to a Dubai-based account for a confidential acquisition deal in the emirate.
This Bot Gives Enormous Power To A Newbie Fraudster
A new bot is bringing fraudsters point and click ease of use and it’s available right within a Telegram channel. And that’s what makes it particularly powerful and dangerous.
OTP bot is a caller robot that calls a targeted phone number with either custom made or premade phone call scripts, that is read by an professional AI voice. The original purpose of OTP bots was to gain access of peoples OTP's for login into full access or not full access logins to different services like payment services, brokerage accounts and even bank accounts.
Mass Arrest of Over 6,000 Scammers In Myanmar, Many Of Them Slaves
Dramatic video footage captures the mass arrest of over 2,000 scammers in Myanmar this month. And this wasn’t the only arrest.
Last month, over 4,600 scammers were handed over to China in what has been a massive counterattack on Pig Butchering scams by the Chinese government.
Fraud Factories Electrocute Victims and Give Them Scripts To Follow
Horrifying stories continue to pour out of Myanmar and Cambodia including the story of Francis Kamugisha who was forced to scam and electrocuted when he could not hit his fraud quota.
In the fraud factories he was given scripts like this to scam his victims into making large deposits into Crypto Platforms.
Mr Kamugisha had to work for 18 hours a day with no day off. “We were not allowed to sleep for more than four to five hours a day. They woke us up by shocking us with electric tasers,” he added.
Zelle Issues Refunds But Worried Fraudsters Might File False Claims
2,100 banks have begun issuing refunds for people scammed on Zelle. It actually started back in June but Zelle just announced the program because they are worried if they release too many details that fraudsters will begin to file false claims that try to exploit the refund policies.
Instead of requiring lenders to reimburse customers, EWS has implemented a mechanism that allows banks to claw back funds from the recipient's account and return them to the sender.
Lenders on Zelle are also now required to implement a tool that flags transfers with risky attributes, such as a payment to an account that has never transacted on the Zelle network
Welcome To PPP Island- A Sweetheart Of A Fraud Deal
The natural splendor of Sweetheart Island is the perfect setting for sunbathing, snorkeling, fishing, bird watching, canoeing, hiking, exploring uninhabited nearby islands and so much more.
And we can now change the name of the island to PPP Island.
The island was purchased by Patrick Parker Walsh with fraudulent PPP funds. All told he collected about $8 million in funds for his Blimp company but instead of paying salaries he bought himself the Island.
But he got caught.
So, instead of spending his time relaxing on a nice hammock on the island he will be sitting in jail for the next 5 years. Thanks to Mary Ann Miller for the heads up on this story!
Never Use This Rule For Fraud Strategies
Never use this rule in fraud. One bank learned it the hard way. đź™…
Glendale California is a particularly hot spot for Bust Out and credit exploitation schemes. Certain Armenian fraud rings that specialize in circumventing bank policies for cards and loans have given the city a reputation for heightened fraud risk.
And while banks can certainly monitor accounts for suspicious behavior after the accounts or loans are opened, trying to stop the activity by denying applications or line increases based on demographics of the borrower is not one of them.
This week a bank was fined over $25 million for targeting applicants with surnames ending in “-ian” and “-yan.” Nicknamed “Little Armenia,” Glendale is home to approximately 15% of the Armenian American population in the U.S.
And that wasn’t the end. A class action lawsuit was filed against the bank the by an attorney on behalf of Marine Grigorian for redlining and discrimination. She was denied a credit line on her Costco credit card.
Unscrupulous Credit Repair Is Driving Up Synthetic Identity
Did you see this case yesterday where the Houston Police nabbed a lady named Brooke Rutledge for using a CPN?
Auto lenders are losing about $1.8 billion in synthetic identity loans each year which is a lot. But did you know they also decline and stop an additional $12 billion in attempts?
It’s all these credit repair influencers on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Telegram that are behind a lion’s share of the synthetics, peddling their “CPN” profiles.
College Student Had A $3.5M Professional Refund Fraud Hustle
Matthew Bergwall is a serial entrepreneur that is going places. But it might not be where he was expecting.
By his account he is a serial entrepreneur with major investments into many industries.
Ever heard of FTID fraud and professional refunding?
FTID stands for Fake Tracking ID. When this scam is successful, the tracking number will show that the package has been delivered to the correct address, when the package was instead delivered to a different address.
Matthew Bergwall a student at Miami gained employee level access to a major shipping companies systems and entered fake tracking numbers for shipments like a $41,000 Rolexe, computers and other expensive items.
All told he fraud scheme caused nearly 10,000 fraudulent returns and resulted in at least $3.5 million in lost profits to online retailers
The Quarter of A Billion Dollar KitKat Fraud Hijacking
Danny Taing’s 55,000 Kit Kats began their long, twisted and sometimes obscure journey in Japan.
The Kit Kat shipment — which included sought-after flavors like melon, matcha latte and daifuku mochi — had cost $110,000, but Bokksu expected to make about $250,000 in total revenue.
But somewhere along the trip, his trove of candy went missing.
Police are investigating the theft of over $250,000 in Kit Kats as part of a disturbing spike in an online-based fraud trend called "strategic theft" or "fictitious pickups," which involves elements of extortion and identity theft.
The candy made it from Japan to California, and then seemingly vanished into thin air.
How did it happen? Read below to find out. 👇️
Spooky AI ChatBots Talk To Each Other
Ok this is creepy. Watch these two chatbots have a conversation with each other.
It’s alarming where AI is taking us.
@kyssmhe Two gpts casually playing a 20 question game #gpt4 #openai #chatgpt #chapgpt4
New Anti-Fake Solution Could Prevent Voice Cloning
Scientist at Washington University have come up with a solution to voice cloning and it’s pretty genius.
Called Anti-Fake, the technology is similar to what credit card issuers used to prevent counterfeiting back in 1999 by introducing code into the magnetic strip that wasn’t visible on the card.
Scientist do the same thing with your voice recording by injecting hidden sounds into your recordings so when the fraudsters try to clone your voice it makes the clone sound like gibberish
Thanks for staying informed with me.
And a very special thank you all our Vets that served the country. We salute you! 🫡
Now, whose got some interesting stories for me? We fraud fighters have to stick together and keep each other in the know.
Have an amazing week friends!