Hi FraudFighters,

It’s Money2020 week, and so many people are in Vegas for the big show. It’s also Halloween week when all sorts of unusual and scary frauds emerge from the dark corners.

Let’s get to the top stories this week!

• Ponzidemia - A plague of pyramid schemes are sweeping across Argentina in a new trend called “Ponzidemia”. In some towns, 30% of the population has been duped.

• Halted! - New Jersey Anchor Benefit Program was so attacked by fraud, the government had to suspend the program last week.

• Hitman Caught - A PPP Fraud hitman was caught on video camera committing multiple murders and fleeing the scene.

• Grate Cheese Heist 🧀 - Scammers duped warehouse workers in the UK, stealing 22 tons of cheese. Looks like they had a grate escape plan.

• Billionaire Deepfaked - A Dubai billionaire almost lost an extraordinary amount of money when someone deepfaked his voice, called a senior executive at his company, and requested a wire transfer.

• Deceptive Delight - Researchers uncovered a new way to jailbreak AI and have it return restricted content by creating a “prompt cocktail” that confuses the AI into revealing prohibited content.

• Free At Last! - Nigeria has dropped all charges against Tigran Gambaryan, and he is back home safely with his family. The nightmare for him and his family is over.

• Not Her Picture—Michigan First Credit Union captured ATM footage that proves she did not make the withdrawals totaling over $5,000, but they still refused to refund her. Now, she is taking them to court.

• Fashion Guide - Stylists provide tips on what fraud fighters should (and should not) wear to Money2020 and other conferences.

• Drowning in Alerts—A new report reveals that companies are overspending on cybersecurity tools and drowning in false positives, and all that spending isn’t helping them avoid breaches.

Chase Launches Flurry Of Lawsuits Against Glitch Fraudsters

Chase is taking on first-party fraudsters in a big way. The bank filed lawsuits in several states targeting people who deposited counterfeit and forged checks and then rapidly withdrew the money before the checks were returned.

The bank appears to be going after the big fish who deposited the largest counterfeit and forged checks and absconded with the money.

Click to Read 👇️ 

The Sinister “Naked Chat BlackMail Scam” Is Growing

Is this a new epidemic coming out of Hong Kong? It could be. In a single week, an emerging scam that police call “Naked Chat Blackmail” has claimed 59 victims in the city.

What is unusual is that this scam now targets women with success, which has not happened typically. And it seems to be gaining traction and escalating through the region.

Click to Read 👇️ 

Wow. This Tool From Claude.AI Is A Fraud Fighting Power-Up ⚡️ 

Not all AI news is bad news. Some of the advancements are incredible.

My mind is swimming with the possibilities of how this new AI feature from Anthropic will supercharge the game of fraud fighters.

A new built-in feature for Claude.ai enables Claude to write and run JavaScript code. Claude can now process data, conduct analysis, and produce real-time insights. You can upload any CSV file, it handles all of the data processing and provides lots of insights on the data.

Click below to check out a demo 👇️ 

Inscribe.AI Cuts Fraud Review 20X with GenAI

An excellent new case study on the power of Claude.AI to super-power fraud analysts. In this case, Inscribe partnered with Anthropic with some amazing results

• Reduce fraud review time by 20x, from 30 minutes to 90 seconds

• Increase output by 70x in one client example

• Implement their new AI models in one day

Click to Read 👇️ 

CEO Of Deepfake Company Became Victim of Deepfake Himself

The CEO of HeyGen, the company that lets anyone make a deepfake clone, was deepfaked, and his clone was used in a phishing scam. The deepfake had over 200,000 views. HeyGen said the deepfake wasn’t created on their platform.

Click to Read 👇️ 

Political Fundraisers Accused Of Scamming Dementia Patients

CNN reports that political campaigns are bilking vulnerable people through trickery. The report claims that deceptive techniques are being perpetrated by both Democrat and Republican candidates, often depleting dementia patients’ life savings. This includes pre-checking boxes that make the donations recurring monthly instead of a single instance.

Click to Read 👇️ 

The 9-Digit Fraud That Sparked America’s Fastest-Growing Financial Crime

I spoke to synthetic identity fraud legends Barbara Simcox, Steve Lenderman, and Maryann Miller to understand the history of CPNs and how they have been the primary driver behind the stratospheric rise in America’s fastest-growing financial crime.

Click to Read 👇️ 

Shut Your Trap. Telegram Fraud Traffic Is Falling Fast

Telegram has been banning fraud channels left and right, which appears to be having an effect. Fraud Traffic on the top channels has fallen dramatically from (close to 50% drop) in October, but it seems it bounced back a bit. Maybe the criminals are resorting to starting new channels.

Mysterious Request. Why Does The Pentagon Want Deepfake AI People?

A recent request by the Pentagon has people scratching their heads. 🤷‍♂️ According to a recent wishlist, The Pentagon is interested in technologies that can generate convincing online personas for social media platforms, social networking sites, and other online content.

The request seeks AI people that “appear to be a unique individual that is recognizable as human but does not exist in the real world,” with each featuring “multiple expressions” and “Government Identification quality photos.”

Click to Read 👇️ 

New AI Voice Scam Targets Older People In Georgia

Voice clones are making their way into every facet of scamming and fraud. It’s the targets, though, that worry me. Most AI scams seem to be focused on the most vulnerable populations.

Here is yet another story about how AI targets elderly people in the US.

Click to Watch 👇️ 

50% Fraud Rate - Rental Fraud In Canada Is Booming

New research in Canada points to the proliferation of lies on rental applications. According to Menke’s Rentals, they screened 175 rental applications, and over 90 were fraudulent.

This could be anything from invalid ID cards, fake credit reports, and manipulated employment letters or pay stubs,” they said. “Once we find misleading information, a bigger story typically unfolds.

Click to Read 👇️ 

Take-Out Addict Put Her Employer Out Of Business With Her Fraud

At least she got some good meals out of the whole thing. Charlene Smith, a bookkeeper for a now-defunct farming business in Nampa, Idaho, pocketed over $170,000 from her employer.

What she used the money for was strange. She didn’t buy luxury items but spent excessively on food delivery services from DoorDash and Uber Eats.

Click to Read 👇️ 

Ghost!! 160,000 Of Them Apply For Auto Loans Each Year

Ok, here is your spooky fraud statistic for the week.

Ghosts are lurking out there buying cars. According to Point Predictive’s analysis, about one in every 625 auto applications (about 160,000 total annually) returns to a social security number listed on the Death Master File!

Are these ghosts, or is something more sinister at play?

The Unit21 State Of Fraud Report Just Dropped 🔥 

The highly anticipated State of Fraud Report from Unit 21 was released yesterday, and it's got some eye-opening stats.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the webinar, you can download the report and see everything you missed.

Click to Download 👇️ 

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

FrankonFraud