Hello from FrankonFraud,

AI fraud continues to ramp up. If you wonder why I spend so much time covering it, it’s because I 100% believe it will transform how we look at fraud and scams over the next 18 months.

Let’s get right to those top fraud bites this week!

• The Jig is Up - Telegram announced they will begin turning over information on suspected criminal activity to Law Enforcement.

• MoneyGram Hacked? - MoneyGram, the popular money transfer service has been offline for days due to a cybersecurity issue.

• The Zipper “Glitch “- In a sign of the times, a strange new trend of Tik Toker’s stealing bag zippers and posting videos about it has emerged. Crime on social media is hitting peak form.

• Gambaryan: Bloomberg covers how Tigran Gambaryan, a former criminal investigator, was held hostage in Nigeria and charged with money laundering crimes he did not commit.

• $2.4 Million in Shoe Boxes: A popular restaurant operator in San Diego was charged with stealing millions in PPP funds, taking out the cash, and hiding millions of dollars in shoeboxes in his bedroom closet.

• Fresno’s Big Check Fraud - Scammers attempted over $7 million in check fraud against the city of Fresno.

• Gaming the system - Bike hustlers in New York figured out how to game Citi Bikes incentives and earned thousands a month, moving bikes from location to location.

• Fannie Mae Tightens Up - Fannie Mae is tightening up fraud controls on commercial lending as fraud soars and losses increase on commercial mortgages.

• Not listening - Read how journalists reported 20 crime channels to Telegram, yet most of the channels remain up a week later. Telegram is just not listening.

• Mystery Solved: The seizure of MyChargeback.com was originally a mystery, but this week, the FBI announced they had seized the website along with several other crypto recovery scam sites.

• Paul Raffile Impact: Gary Warner says, “Sometimes they say one person can’t make a difference, but this is proof that they can. In this case, that one man is Paul Raffile,” referring to his non-stop efforts to force social media to protect teens from sextortion scams, Instagram will now force millions of teens to private accounts.

An Audacious AI Real Estate Deepfake Zoom Call Has Closing Agents Shocked

Margrit Pritchard, an elderly woman with dementia, vanished without a trace in May 2018, leaving her family in California reeling with unanswered questions.

They didn’t realize at the time that her face would reappear five years later, over 3,000 miles away, in Florida, at the heart of a shocking AI deepfake that experts say is poised to explode in property fraud scams.

Read about how an AI scammer tried to steal and sell a property using poor Margrit's photo using commonly available AI software downloaded from the APP store.

Closing Agents need to be on alert!

Click to Read 👇️ 

SS7 Hackers Intercept Calls, Texts, and OTPs

A shocking new video proves how easy it is to hack into your phone without a SIM Swap. In a new demo, White Hat hackers and Derek Muller of Veritasium hack into Linus Sebastian’s phone and intercept his calls live on air.

The trick? SS7—the aging telecom network is full of loopholes that allow anyone with access to it to hijack your phone. They paid a couple of thousand dollars for the demo to access the SS7 network, where they could command his cellphone.

Click to Read 👇️ 

BEC Mentorships Teach Newbie Fraudsters How To Be Skilled Attackers

I stumbled across a Telegram channel specializing in “BEC/CFO Mentorships.” As part of the mentorships, they teach students the ins and outs of being an effective BEC attacker.

Most notably, they mention that some BEC attackers actually end up working for companies providing services for an extended period to build trust and learn how the companies operate from the inside.

Click to Read 👇️ 

PPP Loan Fraud Serial Killer Linked To 4 Murders

If you’re going to join a loan fraud gang, don’t cut your fellow gangbangers out of their cut, or you might end up chalked up.

A Las Vegas man is locked up, accused of being a serial killer, hunting down victims that didn’t give him his cut of PPP fraud proceeds with GPS tracking devices.

Michael Coleman is accused of being a hitman for gang leader Carl Chester Jr. Coleman allegedly murdered at least four people.

According to reports, Chester's PPP loan fraud scheme was a factor in the killings. When fraud participants didn't pay Chester his cut, he allegedly ordered Coleman to kill them or their family members.

Aggressive Counterstrike: How Fidelity Busted The Fraud Glitch

Last week, I wrote about the bank glitch contagion that spread from Chase to Fidelity and Schwab.

With these glitches spreading like the common flu, banks are starting to learn what works. And one of those lessons is that aggressive counterstrikes work. Fidelity, for example, killed the glitch with aggressive increases in hold policies.

While the Fidelity Glitch caught fire, the investment company aggressively dropped limits on mobile deposits from $100,000 to $1,000 and extended hold policies up to 30 days before funds were released.

The impact was nearly instantaneous, and conversations on Telegram spreading the glitch dropped over 90%. While the holds have impacted some customers, it was the only way to stop the attack.

The only issue with the aggressive strikeback against fraudsters was the impact on Fidelity customers, who loudly complained all week on Reddit about the holds.

Strange Luxuries: How Williams Sonoma Exec Stole $10M and Tried To Clone His Pet

I didn’t even know you could clone your pet, but this Williams Sonoma Executive apparently spent at least some of the $10 million he stole from them to do just that.

He engaged in a brazen fraud, creating shell companies and embezzling money from them for over six years, buying yachts, large homes, and strange luxuries.

Click to Read 👇️ 

CyptoScammers Steal $230 Mil, Throw a $2 Million Party and Move Into Mansion

Malone Lam and Jeandial Serrano are alleged to have stolen $230 million in crypto from a victim and went on a wild spending spree in Miami that you can read about here.

Check out the party caught on Instagram, where they spent $300,000 on bottle service alone. The video also features the FBI raid of the mansion where they were holed up in.

asianswithattitudes

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Gangbangers Turned To Check Fraud To Make Money

In an 81-page affidavit, investigators reveal the underbelly of mail theft, check washing, and card cracking operations run by the Mission Hill Gang in Boston.

The gang needed to supplement their drug sales, and check fraud became their cash cow.

Click to Read 👇️ 

Fraud Service Looking For Complicit Merchants That Can Fight Chargebacks

This week’s Telegram ad features a fraud service with a trove of stolen cards. The service is looking for complicit merchants and websites to collaborate to process those cards and split the proceeds.

The only requirement is that the merchant knows how to supply documents to their banks and fight chargebacks!

Starling Bank Claims Voice Clones Is Hitting Millions

Voice cloning is spreading in the UK. According to Starling Bank, close to one in three people in the UK believe a voice-cloning scam has targeted them in the last year.

Check out this wild video where James Nesbitt gets fooled with his own voice!

To counter the problem, the bank is launching a major new program called “Safe Phrases,” which they hope will help its customers defend themselves against new AI attacks.

Click to Read 👇️ 

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FrankonFraud