Baker Fraud Report

Atlanta: Russian man charged with huge bank account takeover fraud; used phony copycat bank web sites to steal sign in data and then stole money; was extradited from the country of Georgia; got “millions”

• Where do scam compounds move to? With Thailand and Cambodia cracking down on scam compounds with huge call centers that made many billions, there is surely a temptation to replicate those efforts.  There are indications that at least some have moved to places like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia, Viet Nam, and Ukraine.  Of course these massive operations need at least tacit support from the local governments.

Full Report here

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DOJ announces creation of nationwide Fraud Detection Center

FBI investigating online company that advertises scans of 153 million driver’s licenses from the US and Canada

Europol announces that the US, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria have taken down a botnet that has affected 11 million computers and that has been running for twenty years

Canada sees fraud losses in the first six months of the year reach $351 million; nearly half of that is investment fraud (meaning crypto romance fraud)

Does shutting down huge scam compounds eliminate fraud?  Its hard not to be happy that these massive centers that kidnap people and rob people across the world are being close down.  But my experience is that when large fraud centers are closed a raft of small ones quickly emerges.  And former employees and managers have developed the skills and expertise to run these new operations.  It looks like these frauds are simply moving to different countries or setting up shop clandestinely in smaller units. So the fight against fraud has to continue.

Full report here

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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

Australia wins court case against  eHarmony dating platform over deceptive subscription practices

Interpol operation targets Black Axe financial networks; 58 arrested, 39 in South Africa

FinCEN warns of “ghost students” who sign up for college using ID theft and then collect federal loan money, never really attend; $120 billion goes through this system each year

Full report here

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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