Baker Fraud Report

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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

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 Are we looking at fraud transactions correctly?  Most of us think of fraud as a one transaction event. Victim gets a call/text/email, get flustered, sends money to crooks and then later reports it. But many times, even most, victims really send money to the scammers several times before they end up reporting it. If I’m right, this matters for several reasons. First, of course, if the crooks are likely to return this is an opportunity for law enforcement to step in, especially if the scammer appears in person to collect funds.  And it reminds us when we receive complaints that the matter is not necessarily at an end and that victims need to be warned of that.

UN office of Drugs and Crime issues new Handbook on effective communications strategies for prevention of organized frauds

• Provide clear, specific and actionable alerts, avoiding vague or repetitive messages
• Use non-judgmental language to help victims feel supported

Canada: Durhan police take action against fraudsters that fly into the country, commit frauds, and then fly home right away; 46 arrested, most of them Romanians

Justice Department to strip US citizenship from those committing fraud

Full report here

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North Carolina: Nine years prison for man who sold contact information for seven million older people to Jamaican lottery fraud groups

New UK research study on the worldwide underground industry that seeks “returns” and refunds from online retailers

• Losses just in the US at least $1 billion/year
• This fraud is franchised to individuals, pay their tutors a percentage; scammers taught online
• Scammers have detailed knowledge of refund policies
• Often have business insiders help
• Many claim items not delivered, claim damaged, or return counterfeit goods

US House testimony by Erin West of Operation Shamrock on crypto romance frauds and SE Asian scam compounds; Chinese CCP tolerates and protects; US consumers lose least $10 billion a year and it is still exploding

New study looks at the use of AI in crypto romance frauds

• Interviewed 145 who worked at scam compounds
• Finds that 87% or workers at scam compounds do just the first steps at beginning contact with victims
• AI is routinely used in many parts of this fraud

Meta works with Starlink, DOJ, others to fight scam compounds; takes down 1.4 million fake ads; 63 arrested

Full report here