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Synthetic Identities: Now Pre-Aged and Pre-Funded 🏦
Frank McKenna
March 11, 2025
Hey FraudFighters, đź‘‹
Some good in fraud happens once in a while. Scam losses in Australia have plummeted thanks to a new approach called Scam Interdiction that seems to be working like a charm.
Let’s check out the top stories this week.
This Week’s Top Fraud Highlights
Visa Launches Scam Disruption Dept.- Visa has launched a new intelligence team that goes beyond Visa's own payment network and studies the dark web and social media to uncover scammers' actions. They stopped over $350 million in scams last year. Read More
Laughing and Making Faces - Charlie Javice laughs and makes faces at the witness (a former Frank employee and now Chase Sr Engineer) who claims she instructed him to create fake accounts to defraud Chase. A defense lawyer now says he pursued Javice romantically and she rejected him, that’s why he is testifying against her. Read More
Even More Laughable - China officials say Myanmar has been eradicated of scam compounds after the recent raids. Yeah right. 🙄 Read More
22 Ghost Employees - An HR Manager in Shanghai created 22 fake employees and collected their paychecks for himself for 8 years, stealing over $2 million from his company. He would have gotten away with it, but someone noticed that all the employees had perfect attendance and never missed a work day. Read More
30 Lashes - Singapore is considering bringing back caning for people involved in Pig Butchering or assisting scammers. Yes, it’s gotten that bad in Asia. Read More
Cambodia Bombshell - FraudFighter Erin West reveals that scamming has overrun the country of Cambodia and is now “The Industry” that dominates. Read More
Google Rolls Out Scam Detector - Google rolls out an excellent new AI-based scam detection that will warn people when a text message is probably a scam. Read More
FTC Report Shows Fraud Spike- New FTC data reveals a significant jump in reported fraud - over 25% for 2024. Read More
Taco Con, Tacos Gone- A phantom Taco Festival in Texas disappeared faster than free samples at Costco. Victims bought tickets thinking they would be in taco heaven, however, they just ended up hungry. Read More
Double Bad News - Scammers stole their life savings, and substantial tax bills arrived from the IRS. Read More
Vendors Misbehaving? - A sales executive is sending .02 cents of PayPal payments to prospects’ accounts to get them to respond. Is this taking it too far? Read Post
Sam Bankman Could Go Free - Rumors swirl that the notorious fraudster could be angling for a pardon from Trump. Read More
Pre-Funded CPN’s Take Synthetic Identities To Another Level
CPNs emerged in 2007 as an easy way for consumers to create new synthetic identities.
In 2024, Premade CPNs emerged, giving consumers access to pre-created identities that were aged enough to bypass bank controls.
One year later, pre-funded CPNs emerged. These give consumers cookie-cutter identities and come fully loaded with bank accounts and credit cards they can use immediately.
Are these scams, or are they legitimate threats to synthetic identity controls? In either case, they are emerging on social media and YouTube, and consumers may be enticed into buying them as a quick fix.
Australia’s Scam Busting Intervention Strategy Pays Off As Losses Plummet
While the rest of the world has focused on making banks foot the bill for scam victims, Australia has quietly implemented an entirely different strategy focused on prevention.
And it’s working. This week, a new ScamWatch report reveals that scam losses in the country have plummeted by 33% in the last two years.
The secret to their success is industry-wide collaboration, payee name checking, and holding suspicious payments for 24 to 48 hours.
Australia is setting the blueprint for how other countries will tackle scams.
Breaking - Biggest Single Day Scammer Take Down In History
Jim Browning is reporting the largest arrest of scammers in history. According to intel, over 3,000 scammers were arrested and deported at the end of last year.
The arrest, which occurred in Dubai, cleared out call centers nationwide. Chinese fraudsters set up those centers and were primarily populated with workers that had been recruited from Africa.
Man Stages Cartel Kidnapping To Hide His Phantom Loan Fraud Against Banks
Phantom Loan Fraud against credit unions and small banks is a growing problem. But this Michigan-based Car Dealer took it to the extreme when it started unraveling, claiming that the Mexican Cartel was extorting him.
Janssen vanished in November 2023, only to reappear a month later with his hands zip-tied and face bloodied along a rural road and pointed the finger at the cartel. The FBI says it was all a ruse to cover up the real crime - his fraud.
Report: Famous Fraud Mulling Sale for ~$1 Billion
Famous fraud company Riskified went public in July 2021. Its market cap was $3.3 billion initially, but it has since dropped to $855 million.
The company has continued to post impressive growth, bringing in over $327 million in revenue annually for its chargeback guarantee program. However, it has yet to make a profit, and the business model might shake investors after some higher-than-expected losses due to unexpected fraud attacks at some of their customers.
It’s rumored that the company is up for sale for about $1 billion. That might sound like a lot, but that would only be 3X, which is far from what it was.
I asked ChatGPT to do some Deep Research on the company, and it produced this pretty intense analysis which is very favorable on the company: Deep Research on Riskified.
Criminal Syndicate Huione PayLoses Banking License
Things keep going from bad to worse for Pig Butchering bosses. This week the Cambodian government stripped the notorious Huione Guarantee of their banking license.
This is significant because experts believe the service is one of the main arteries of illicit services and money laundering for billions in money stolen from victims.
FyreFest II Is Just Another Big Fraud Happening Before Our Eyes
Truth can be stranger than fiction, but this one stands out!
Billy McFarland claims that Fyre II is happening and even showcased his claims on the Today show. He states it will occur in Mexico on Isla Mujeres at the end of May. He is offering tickets for the event, priced up to $1 million.
However, officials on the Island claimed no permits had been requested, hotels confirmed no partnerships with the Festival, and the only act announced was that of Antonio Brown, former wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
He was back on Instagram, appearing desperate, sharing no details about anything but still claiming it’s 100% real. Watch it here.
Wells Fargo Employee Involved In Identity Theft And Account Takeover
FINRA is making moves to bar an ex-employee of Wells Fargo Advisors because he was involved in account takeover schemes, victimizing customers of other banks. He would call the banks, impersonate the customer, add his phone number, and order replacement debit and credit cards to his home address.
A Horrifying Fraud - Fake AI Doctors On TikTok
Here’s a new fraud: Fake AI-generated doctors are posting health advice videos on TikTok that can lead to disastrous consequences.
Watch one of the fake doctors here make outlandish claims.
AI doctors are being created with an App called Captions. Their advice borders on ridiculous, but it has people believing that they are real doctors.
Scammers Using AI Voice Clones Of Customers To Defraud Banks
I’ve heard of AI voice clones fooling bank customers, but this is the first published story of them using AI voice clones to defraud the bank’s customer service departments. A bank in Canada receives at least two of these attempts a week!
Yahoo Boy Shows How He Makes DeepFake Video Calls
Format Boy gives a step-by-step guide on how he uses screencasting and deepfake software to pull off fake video calls with victims by simply using his iPhone.
That’s a wrap for another weekly edition of FrankonFraud.
I hope you have a fantastic week ahead fighting fraud.