Baker Fraud Report

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White House issues Executive order to combat transnational internet fraud

• Analysis: Order allows private companies to hack ransomware and other criminal gangs

Ohio: Court affirms $83 million judgment in case by Ohio AG against man responsible for billions of robocalls

Full report here

France to ban all marketing calls to the public except where there is prior consent to receive them

Consumer Federation of America reports that Americans lost $148 billion for frauds last year; up 25%

AARP: Is that real photo being used by a romance or other potential scam? How to do a reverse image search, and the tools to do it

Full report here

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House Financial Services Committee releases bipartisan report on the need to do more about international fraud operations

Interpol finds that 55% of internet crime from Africa in linked to AI; includes Romance fraud and BEC

Minnesota: DOJ to return $8.1 million to victims of magazine subscription frauds

Open AI says it has disabled the ChatGPT being used by scam compounds in Cambodia to do romance scams, crypto romance frauds, and law enforcement impersonation

Seattle: Man pleads guilty to hacking cloud data storage and demanding ransom from data owners; got at least $2.5 million

Full report here

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Franchising frauds:  Fraudsters are creative. Those behind many common frauds are supporting thousands of others.  Ransomware gangs develop the tools and then other scammers themselves reach out and rip off the public.  These “franchisees” collect funds and pay the main actors a percentage.  This model is now being used for many other types of frauds. So even if one catches a scammer, it may be necessary to go upstream to really solve the problem. Or could law enforcement themselves sign up and target the main players?

25 scams that have worked for centuries – and still do

UN says that there is a drastic increase in young people being kidnapped and forced to work at scam compounds in Asia

Full report here

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Brooklyn: Two Chinese men charged with laundering money for crypto romance fraud and sending it to China; handled $43 million

Stop Scams Alliance and Gallup Polls release report on survey the US public about scams

• 6% of the US public was a scam victim last year;
• losses of $68 billion
• 21% say losses were a severe hardship
• 79% reported it to their bank or another entity; only 13% went to the FTC or law enforcement

FBI Director Patel goes to Cambodia and meets with Prime Minister to discuss working together against online frauds

Full report here

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Interpol works with 97 countries to target frauds

• 5800 people arrested; $293 million seized
• Focus was on romance, BEC, gov’t impersonation fraud

Ohio: Three Russians, two companies, indicted for offering “bullet proof hosting;” web hosting services that can’t be tracked to owner through payments and that support cyberattacks and phishing campaigns; took in $62 million

Full Report here

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Rhode Island: Alibaba pays $600 million fine for not prevent sales of illegal pharmaceuticals from its web site

Full report here

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Where are the Robocalls?  I don’t think I’ve gotten a robocall in several months.  That’s GREAT news.  Are yours down as well?  It may be that the telecoms really are working with law enforcement to shut these down. Remember that calls from outside the US must have a US-based service to transfer these voice over internet calls into the phone system. And they must have a way to display a Caller ID number, and usually must have a phone number for recipients to call back. Obviously this system should be something we can track.  So whoever is working on this, thank you and great work!  And maybe there could be more work done on spam text messages.

New BBB study looks at Artificial Intelligence used for customer service

• Businesses increasingly using it for chats, incoming calls
• Often unpopular with customers
• Complaints also note increase in scams using AI

Supreme Court rules President can remove FTC Commissioners at will; also affects other federal regulatory agencies

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International effort takes down disrupts three families of malware

• US, UK, Canada, Denmark, Germany Netherlands partner with Microsoft
• $47 million money identifed
• takes down 327 servers
• Malware, often targeting WordPress, resolved
• Also takes down botnet used by groups

ID Theft Resource Center releases 2026 report on trends

• Increase in scams taking over devices now 27% of reports
• Most common scam stealing identities are scams claiming a problem with your online account
• Second is job scams; lottery and prize scams third

DOJ charges 455 people, including 90 doctors, with healthcare fraud across the US that cost $6.5 billion

Full Report here

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International law enforcement effort shuts down crypto money laundering service that handled $390 million in funds from ransomware attacks; a Ukrainian and a Russian arrested in the country of Georgia

HHS releases federal action plan and campaign to protect older Americans

• Improve reporting;  better coordination; work better with banks, etc.
•  plan itself here

Treasury’s FINcen releases new guidance allows more and better sharing of information about Fraud and money laundering

Need an expert witness for consumer protection or fraud issues?  Let me know.

Full report here