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- Zelle Growth is Soaring, But What About The Fraud? 🛫
Zelle Growth is Soaring, But What About The Fraud? 🛫
Frank McKenna
March 05, 2024
Hello from FrankonFraud,
It was another crazy week in fraud, particularly in AI, where we saw another jaw-dropping advancement in scammer capabilities.
Alibaba’s Emote Portrait Alive, takes single static images and can make them talk, move, sing and rap. I’m afraid to think about how much scammers will love it. 🫣
FaceSwap Fraud Up Big- A new report says Faceswap injection attacks using virtual cameras are up 704%, and this tech is scary good if you want to check it out.
Big Growth - Zelle reports big growth, but fraud and scams are now likely $725M annually
Check Fraud AI- The US Govt touts that new AI helped them recover over $375 million in stolen social security and tax refund checks.
Back at It - More than 50 people have filed police reports against this credit repair specialist in Florida, and she is back to her shenanigans again.
OnlyFakes Reboot - OnlyFake.org disappeared three weeks ago when they were exposed, but it appears they have rebooted and are using an alias called Onetimes.org
Gotcha! - Prism Data launched a new first-party fraud detector using open banking data. It looks for sudden shifts in income and expenses in bank balances to predict if you're a fraudster.
Clever scheme - A postal worker concocted an ingenious scheme to submit fraudulent Tax refunds to fictitious addresses along his route so he could deliver the checks to his own pocket.
Biggest Crackdown Ever - The UK launched this 22-point Action plan, declaring war on money mule activity, which they say is leading to child exploitation.
Impossible to stop AI - Disturbing deepfake clones of murdered children telling their stories have emerged on social media, drawing outrage everywhere.
Walker Busted! - A check fraudster was busted; police believe she was a “walker” recruited to cash the check.
Unfathomable Losses - University of Austin Researchers traced crypto flows from Pig Butchering victims and discovered over $75 billion in losses in this fascinating study.
Clandestine Video - This Jim Brownings's behind-the-scenes video into a Pig Butchering compound’s catfishing models is a must-watch
Lone Wolf Fraud Fighters, You Are Not Alone
Thousands of fraud fighters worldwide feel like they are the only ones who care about fraud at their companies. In the fight against fraud, they are a department of one. The fraud controls at the companies they work for are so fragile that everything they built turns to dust when they leave.
I call them Lone Wolf Fraud Fighters. I wrote this to tell their story and help them understand they are not alone.
Neural Network Site OnlyFake Is Back Online With A New Home
Only Fake, the document generation site, claimed it used neural networks as part of its automated fake ID generation service. The site went offline after 404 Media tested and exposed the service.
It didn’t take long, but the site seems to be running at a new home - OneTimes.Org, but this time with a whole bunch of disclaimers on how you should not use the documents for illegal purposes. How else are you supposed to use them? 🤔
They also downplay the AI angle that circulated in the media. The Telegram channel for OnlyFake claims that documents “were not created with the help of artificial intelligence”, claiming “It's just a system that allows editing images.”
Nevertheless, the site appears to be run by the same people that run passport-cloud.ru, a fake passport generation site out of Russia where you can even create fake US Passports for $60 like these 👇️
What a tangled web it is.
You can never keep these sites out of commish for long I guess!
Zelle Payments Up 28%, Estimated Zelle Fraud and Scams Is $725 Million
Zelle announced record growth this week; payment growth soared over 28%. That’s the good part, but given the nine basis points average for fraud and scams on the platform, Zelle fraud likely ran about $725 million last year; that’s up over 65% since 2021, the last time I measured it.
If the fraud rate has increased (which it very well could have), that number will only be higher.
Thanks Ken Palla for the heads up on the latest Zelle numbers!
26% of iPhones Can Be Hacked With These 20 Codes
Are you using any of these codes to lock your iPhone 👉️ (1234, 1111, 0000, 1212, 7777, 1004, 2000, 4444, 2222, 6969, 9999, 3333, 5555, 6666, 1122, 1313, 8888, 4321, 2001, 1010)?
If you are, you are a sitting duck for hackers and thieves to break into your phone. According to researchers, 26% of iPhone users use these passwords to lock their phones.
I have to admit, my PIN was on the list 🫢 but I changed it after reading this!
Alibabas New Jaw-Dropping AI Creates Video Clones From Single Image
The rapid advancement of AI cloning is out of control 🤯 . Alibaba researchers developed an insane new technology called Emote Portrait Alive, which brings a static image alive by making it talk, sing, and rap.
Romance and Pig Butchering scammers will have an absolute field day with this.
AI Is Deemed #2 Threat By World Leaders To Cause Global Crisis in 2024
It’s a real and present danger. 1,470 leaders of the World Economic Forum were surveyed and they believe that AI-generated misinformation likely to cause a material crisis at a global scale.
AI-generated fraud, scams and disinformation are set to transform the world in ways we cannot yet completely fathom.
Treasury Department Goes Big On AI To Tackle Check Fraud
The US Govt has been so plagued with Check Fraud that they are resorting to AI to help recover stolen Tax and SSI checks
While they are light on the details of this undercover AI 🧪 , part might be checking account ownership details where the checks are being deposited in near real-time. For example, Chase was selected to provide Account Validation services to the Treasury late last year to avoid improper payments.
It appears to be working well - over $375 million recovered in just the last 12 months!
Clever Like A Fox Scheme Was Doomed To Fail
A corrupt New York postal employee, Callistus Joseph, worked in cahoots with a tax refund fraudster to pull off a clever scheme.
Joseph would create a list of non-existent fake addresses along his postal route in zip code 10033, and then his buddy (the fraudster) would file fraudulent tax refunds and have checks mailed to those addresses.
The mailman would then deliver the checks into his pocket and share the proceeds with his fraud buddy. The IRS became suspicious when non-cashed IRS checks to an address in Pennsylvania (presumably where he lived) were receiving a change of address to his postal route in New York.
They knew it had to be an “inside job” at the postal service because none of the checks to the fictitious addresses being returned.
FaceSwap Injection Attacks Are Up 704% - Identity Solutions Should Be On Alert
Iproov just released the 2024 Threat Intelligence Report, and they say a new threat grew by an astonishing 700% last year. They report that fraudsters use emulators to disguise virtual cameras and then feed face swaps into those virtual cameras to commit identity fraud by bypassing biometric controls.
The face swap tools of choice among fraudsters are Deepswap, Swapface, Deepface Live, and Swapstream.
If you want to check out a video of how crazy good this tech is click here 👇️
Busted! Police Think Woman Is A “Walker” Cashing $24k Check For Fraudster
A Florida woman’s fishy story unravels as she tries to explain how she received a $24,000 treasury check.
Police aren’t buying it and are convinced a fraudster recruited her to be a “walker” or “head”.
If you have not watched this video yet, please do and please share it with everyone you know. John Oliver delivers an amazing expose on Pig Butchering that might help someone you know from being a victim.
Thank you to fraud fighter Bobby Welsh at SAFE Credit Union for the tip!
Thanks for reading, and thanks for those of you that send me tips on exciting trends in fraud.
Thanks again to Ken Palla, Bobby Welsh and Mary Ann Miller for story tips this week.
Have a great week!