Hi Friends 👋
Hope you had an amazing Thanksgiving weekend and Black Friday.
Let’s get to the interesting fraud stories this week.
Fraud News Roundup 🗞
The Scam Crackdown Will Be Broadcast - Myanmar State TV has begun broadcasting the scam crackdown, showing daily video of buildings being bulldozed, sweeps of scam centers and detention of scammers.
$600 Million Scrap Metal Fraud - He promised to ship valuable “Nickel” but sent boatloads of scrap metal in a massive $600 million fraud case.
Age of The Scam State - Like Narco-States, scam states have emerged in Southeast Asia taking over the governments of countries like Cambodia.
Truist Employees Trigger Losses - FDIC reports two Truist employees triggered over 360k in losses with their fraud.
Take That Zuckerberg - In Europe, Meta and TikTok will be held liable for fraud and scam losses if they fail to remove an online scam that has been reported. Not surprisingly, “big tech” says it sets a dangerous precedent.
Sneaky Name Change - HuionePay, the scammers payment network which was sanctioned by US Government, sneakily changed their name to H-Pay to avoid detection last week.
Grinch Bot 2.0 - Grinch bot activity is on the rise this holiday season as these AI bots snatch up hard to find items from retailers causing a shortage for the kiddy kids who want their popular toys.
You Get What You Pay For - Scammers are infiltrating Fiverr, posing as real lawyers for ridiculously cheap prices. In reality, they are stealing real lawyers identities and delivering AI slop back to customers.
Miss Universe Fraud Scandal - The Miss Universe competition is in the midst of a massive scandal with owners in Mexico and Thailand accused of fraud, drug and human trafficking. This has been a very bad year for the competition which was involved in another big scandal on social media.
AI Replacing Scam Workers - In Southeast Asia, experts say compounds are replacing workers with AI, and that may reduce the efforts to close down centers since human trafficking is no longer involved.
“Any Body Killer” Gang Members - The ABK gang out of Miami has been caught up in the Fraud Department “impersonation scam” wave to generate money.
Great Wolf Lodge Mess - 50 cars were smashed in California during one night as thieves broke into car after car in succession.
Wildly Effective Phishing - This new Google forwarding phishing exploit will have your staff clicking emails they are not supposed to because they appear to be coming from legitimate domains like Paypal.
Hellcats to Hackers - One car dealership reports on how they have avoided fraud for two years by building a fortress around their operations.
The $300 Backdoor - Dive into the shadowy Telegram underworld where employees of Telco’s can be bought for as little as a few hundred dollars to make you a digital identity theft pro.
Russian Hackers Shift To Identity Theft - A blogger reports on a disturbing shift where Russian hackers are now setting up spoofed travel sites to steal customers identities and personal information.
Radicalized Roblox - CourtWatch (an amazing newsletter) reports on how an extremist infiltrated Roblox and became increasingly radicalized. A warning for those who let their kids play this game.
ChatGPT Hacked - Do you use ChatGPT, your information might have been hacked in a breach involving a third party vendor they use - Mixpanel.
Driving to Customers Homes - First party fraud is so bad in UK, that one Cafe owner drove to a customers home with receipts to confront them on their bogus fraud claim.
Spray and Pay Weekend Blitz- If you live in the UK, your phone likely buzzed this weekend. Security experts have identified a massive "spray and pay" text message campaign launched immediately after Black Friday.
Hackers Hijacking The Radio Now - The FCC warned that hackers are taking over radio equipment and the airwaves to broadcast emergency alerts as well as offensive material.
Citibank Credit Card Targeted By “Bad Actors” After Link Shared
Citi created a special sign-up link for branch customers to take advantage of their new “Strata Card” that skipped the normal credit checks.
Someone ended up posting the link on Reddit (which was only intended for customers they knew) and thousands of “bad actors” used it to get approved for cards they had no intention of paying for.
Citi ended up mass closing many of the cards.
The Mrs Doubtfire Fraud : He Lived For Years As His Mother
A lonely Italian nurse kept his mother's mummified body in a sleeping bag for three years while collecting her $61,000 in government pension checks in her name.
Every couple of years he was required to head to the government office to renew the pension payments so he dressed up as her. He got away with it before, but not his most recent visit after a clerk noticed his thick neck and the fact his voice at times sounded like a man.
Truist Employee Stole $195,000, Then Faked Her Own Death
Ahshah Dior Martin had a simple response when Truist Bank asked her to return her work laptop after she was fired for stealing $195,000 from customer accounts.
"Sorry to inform you, she has passed away," Martin wrote in an email to the bank purportedly from a relative of hers.
She didn’t want to return the computer because she knew it contained evidence of her internal fraud scheme.
Professional Refund Fraud 2.0 Is Here And It’s Not Human Anymore
The voice didn't say hello. It didn't give a name. It simply stated: "My package is lost. Help me process the refund, thank you."
The call sounded robotic. But the bot rattled off a legitimate order number, a real customer name, and the last four digits of a working phone number. The agent processed the refund anyway.
How does a bad robot voice get a fraudulent refund? It’s simple, they rely on just pounding call centers until they get one through.
Inside Myanmar Scam Compound - A Look At Scammers Daily Life Behind The Scenes
An exceptionally well-done video report on what its like inside a Myanmar Scam compound, including the special video rooms where deepfake AI models conduct calls with victims
People Are Using AI To Alter Photos And Get Refunds From Merchants
As shopping season heats up, merchants in China are reporting a spike in AI fraud.
Chinese consumers are altering photos with AI, which they then send to merchants to get fraudulent refunds.
Some customers took real photos of the fruit they received and then used AI to alter it to appear spoiled or rotten.
To curb the growing number of AI-related frauds, e-commerce platforms have started eliminating the "refund only" option and just letting customers get replacements.
Suspicious DoorDash Driver Alerted Police To Horror Show In Progress
This sounds like a horror show.
It was a suspicious transaction that made the hair on the DoorDash drivers hair stand up.
The delivery called for items like trash bags, zip ties, bleach, and a hatchet to be delivered to a motel in Sweetwater Texas. After delivering the items he immediately called police who discovered a hostage in the room who was in big trouble.
“Free Wifi” Maniac Stole Passwords At Airports To Get Private Pictures Of Women
Be careful of free airport WiFi - and here’s why. Evil Twin attacks using Wifi Pineapples make it very easy for someone to steal your password.
A man in Australia was arrested after he had been carrying out attacks for years at Airports throughout Australia. He was arrested after a flight attendant noticed mid-flight that someone on the plane was spoofing Qantas Wifi service.
Auto Loan Fraudster Used His Own Daughter To File Fake Sex Abuse Claims Against Judge
This case has it all - synthetic identities, forged documents, fake employers, title washing, and fake sexual abuse claims against the judge that oversaw the case.
“Monti Millions” - a self professed Instagram celebrity liked to pretend he was rich but only made $3k a month - hardly enough to qualify for the 7 luxury cars he financed.
It’s All Just A Big Show - 87% Of KK Park Scam Centers Still Operational
The Myanmar military has made it a point to broadcast the destruction of scam centers with dramatic videos of buildings crashing to the ground in a heap of rubble.
But experts point out that only 13% of KK Parks' 500+ acres have been destroyed and 87% of the compound remains operational.
KawaiiGPT - A Scammer’s Dream Just Released
A new AI specifically designed to trick Deepseek and Gemini into doing to devious things was just released.
This jailbroken AI is available on GitHub, giving every scammer access to the most powerful malware and scam-creating software in the world.
Black Friday - Is It All Just A Big Scam?
I’ve always thought Black Friday was just a big ruse on consumers, making them think they're getting half off when they're paying the same price.
But this lady has gone viral for showing how retailers are actually raising prices on Black Friday, taking it to a whole new level.
That’s all for this week.
Thanks for being loyal followers of the newsletter and keep up the good work fighting scams and fraud.
Frank