Hello from FrankonFraud,

Whew. I’ve had a busy week, prepping for the launch of an exciting new product at Point Predictive.

During the day, I build fraud products 🤓 . At night, I become FrankonFraud 🤨 , searching for all the breaking intel on fraud and schemes.

The top stories that caught my eye this week.

• Feds Charge TLOLookup’s Mastermind Criminally

• Capital One cuts check fraud with text alerts

• The BeeKeeper is an Epic Scam Vengeance Film

• The Mother of All Data Breaches Discovered

• This Nasty Triangulation Fraud Scheme 

• A Clingy Fraud Man Convicted of Tax Fraud

• $700,000 Subway tech, defeated in 1 second

• Gangs love California’s chipless debit cards

• People are irate over this check fraud technicality

• Kidnapping scams are becoming a new wave

• Chase battles over 45 billion hack attempts daily

• The IRS is buried with ERC Fraud

• Mentor instructs people to create 150 synthetics a month

• Lookup Robot integrates to TLO API, then reverts

• Secrets of a Nigerian Money Launderer living in the US

Let’s dig into some of the top stories of the week!

Feds Charge Telegram’s TLOLookups Criminally

This week it was revealed that Telegram’s TLO Lookups Founder Chouby Charleron has been criminally charged for selling personal identifying information (PII), including Social Security numbers, of more than 5,000 victims, according to recently unsealed court records.

You can access the criminal complaint here. According to 404Media, Charleron ran the group chat “TLO LOOK UPS” with just under 800 members.

Click This Link Or Image Below to Read

Capital One Cuts Check Fraud With Simple Text Alerts

Celia Edwards Karam, the President of Capital One Retail, sheds light on just how effective text alerts have been in curbing check fraud at the bank.

In this LinkedIn post, she advised that 50% of check fraud is now being proactively identified by customers.

What a win for Capital One, and a bit of positive news that we just might be able to make progress on check fraud!

If you’re not considering check fraud text alerts, maybe you should because it looks like it works!

Mother Of All Data Breaches - 26 Billion Records Could Trigger Tsunami of Crime

Over 26 billion personal records have been exposed in what researchers believe to be the biggest-ever data leak.

Sensitive information from several sites, including Twitter, Dropbox, and Linkedin, was discovered on an unsecured page.

Worryingly, the researchers who found it claim this breach is extremely dangerous and could prompt a tsunami of cybercrime.

“Thanks For FcKing Up Easter” - Triangulation Fraud Fiasco

As reported by Krebs, Tim Brown wanted to buy some playsets for his daycare service, so he headed to Amazon and bought this one 👉️ Step 2 Playset.

A few weeks later, he started getting irate messages from a woman on Facebook who claimed he hacked her Walmart account to order the playsets.

For a year, he has been trying to clear his name. He claims he and the woman are nothing more than victims of a sophisticated triangulation fraud scheme originating in Turkey.

How Banks Cracked Check Fraud In The 1970s When It Boomed

You might not know this, but back in 1976, check fraud was booming in the US, fueled by recession and massive inflation. People resorted to fraud to get by.

Check fraud losses hit a staggering $4 billion - that is over $20 billion in today’s dollars. Check fraud was booming 🚀 

Banks had to turn to technology and deterrents and they found some interesting things that worked. Take a walk back in time to see what they did.

Click This Link Or Image Below to Read

“You Are A Giant Fraud Red Flag”

A Reddit user posted a complaint that Chase had randomly closed a new checking account that she had opened less than 60 days ago. She freaked out and called Chase and was told they would offer her no reason for the closure.

But then, she reveals more. She had filed five separate fraud disputes and received Zelle payments from 5 different people. Users quickly pointed out what the clueless customer had probably missed - she was a giant fraud flag!

Highly Believable CyberKidnapping Scams Are Catching On

Cyber kidnapping and extortion scams are happening a lot more. In this case, a man and woman in Singapore fell victim to an extortion scam and sent over $455,000 for “bail payments” to who they believed to be the police.

A week later, the scammer arranged for the video recordings to be facilitated by the 25-year-old suspect, who also acted in the staged kidnap scene where he pointed a kukri knife at both victims to make the videos more convincing.

After the videos were sent to the parents, the victims were instructed to isolate and not contact anyone. This happened a few weeks ago here in the US as well when a Chinese exchange student was found freezing in the mountains.

This Tiny Technicality on Check Fraud Is Setting Everyone’s Hair On Fire 🤯 

People are rallying around Cate Dutler and think she should get her money back.

Last year, she mailed a $10,000 check to her relative in Chicago.

Well, that check got stolen from the mail, and that’s when her luck went bad. Instead of “washing the check” and changing the payee, the criminals used an image of the check and photoshopped a new payee, technically creating a “counterfeit check”.

And it’s because of that technicality that she won’t get her money back. Chase advised her the time limit for reporting a counterfeit check is 65 days, while washed checks have up to 1 year to report.

Here is the original check she wrote.

And the counterfeit check. Compare this 👆️ to this 👇️ . It’s shocking.

Now you can imagine how much of a headache this is for consumers. It can take months for them to find out someone didn’t cash the check. When they look at their statements, the check appears to be cashed.

Ken Palla posted a lively Linkedin discussion and debate about this issue on Linkedin as well if you want to comment.

Mentor Says You Need To Create 5 Prebuilt Synthetic Identities A Day

Why is synthetic identity exploding? 👉️ Prebuilt CPN’s. Lots of them.

CPN users are not creating one new profile daily; they are doing five a day - or 150 new profiles a month!

If you want to make $100K, that is what you have to do, according to the Cash Academy. He even sells a PR Bot that he sells so you can automatically populate 1000 public records for every profile. This helps fraudsters scale up their synthetic identity empires.

Lookup Robot Integrates With TLO API, Then Quickly Reverts

The premier search tool on Telegram, LookUpRobot , claims to have launched a new API integrated into TLO with tons of new searches including Drivers’s license and SSN searches. I say “claims” because you really can’t trust scammers at their word.

The tool, which provides access to sensitive public records for Bitcoin payments, quickly reverted to its old provider when they had “API issues.”

They promise to return to it when they make it “more stable”.

900 Pages Of Testimony Reveals Secrets Of Nigerian Scam Money Launderers

If you want to glimpse into the shadowy underworld of Nigerian BEC and Romance Scammers, there has never been a better opportunity.

That is because there are hundreds of pages of court testimony by a witness named Michael Herman, who details his experiences working with Nigerian Kingpen “Classic Baggie”

Gary Warner’s 3-Part Blog reveals how Herman would receive money from romance scam victims and transfer money, jewelry, and cash to his boss. If you want an education in how the Nigerian fraud empires work. You have to check this out 👇️ 

Who Wants To See Jason Statham Annihilate Scammers and Their Empires?

Grip onto the edge of your seats for this action thriller. The Beekeeper is scammer vengeance in its most epic form.

Who wants to see a scammer get punched in the face? 🥷 

That’s all, folks! Until next week when I see you again.

If you have any fraud tips or insights, please contact me here.

Hasta La Vista 👋 

FrankonFraud