Baker Fraud Report

Singapore regulators adopt new regulations on banks and telecoms to help prevent scams or assume liability for losses

• Scams gaining access to bank accounts up 50% in 2023
• Losses totaled $484 million
• Banks must give 12 hour cooling off period when there is a login from a new device
• Notify account holders of suspicious activity
• Allow consumer to block access to their accounts
• New regs on text messages as well

Black Axe: Nigerian’s organized crime group involved in not only scams but also drugs and prostitution – and violence

India being hit by wave of calls impersonating police or banks, telling people they may be arrested, and demanding money; referred to there as a “digital arrest”

Can the FTC’s new Click to cancel rule survive legal challenges?  The FTC’s new rule making it easier to cancel online subscriptions is very popular, and many applaud it.  But there have already been many legal actions filed against the Rule.  This rulemaking began in the Trump administration.  Congress many years ago imposed significant procedural steps that the FTC had comply with before adopting an industry-wide rule.  The FTC seems to have violated those in an effort to get the rule adopted before election day.  The potential problems are highlighted in the dissent by Commissioner Holyoak.  There are ideas here that bipartisan and could really help consumers.  But in its haste the FTC may have left itself vulnerable to challenges.

full report here

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 FTC releases annual report to Congress on scams and older victims

• Seniors less likely to be victims but lose more money
• But five times more likely to be victims of tech support fraud
• Three times more likely to be subject to lottery/prize frauds
• Lose more through bank to bank transfers and crypto

Peruvian man gets 98 months prison; ran call centers there that called US Spanish speakers and threatened to arrest or deport them unless they paid for products they had not received; 1100 victims, who paid $700,000

Scam losses in Australia totaled $2.74 billion last year; top scams were investments, romance fraud; tech support, phishing, and payment redirection (business email compromise

Full Report here

Major data breach of telecom companies by Chinese actors
 
Internet Wayback machine hacked; 31 million passwords lost

FTC finalizes new Rule that makes it easier to cancel subscriptions and members; 3-2 vote

Hong Kong: Police arrest 27 for crypto romance fraud, seize training materials; losses of $360 million 

Full report here

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Seattle: Prison inmate and his Nigerian accomplice indicted for calling the Veteran’s Administration supposedly on behalf of seriously ill veterans and having benefits redirected to themselves

New UN report on the International Organized Crime and Scam Centers in Southeast Asia

• Between $18 and $37 billion in losses in 2024
• Extensive money laundering efforts
• Building services for other scam gangs; grown to “industrial proportions”
• Convergence with drugs, illegal gambling, pornography
• Rely on crypto, especially Tether and Stablecoin

Rapidly developing use of AI and deepfakes

Full report here

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Twelve countries take action against Lockbit ransomware gang

• Four arrests; servers seized
• French arrest develop; UK arrest two
• Spain seized 9 servers; arrest administrator of bulletproof hosting service
• US and UK issue sanctions; UK sanctions 15 Russians
• US indicts Russian man

Scammers are now posting fake QR codes on parking meters; send people to scam websites where their credit card information is stolen; growing problem

India busts four rooms at 32 locations doing tech support calls; arrest 26

Ivory Coast arrests eight for phishing scam; scams posed as buyers on small business web sites; used QR codes to take people to fake payment sites and snagged credit card information; took in $1.4 million

Full report here

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FBI disrupts botnet run by Chinese hackers; affected 200,000 in the; hacked VCR’s, DVD players, home routers

Coordinated law enforcement effort by Argentina, Chile, Spain, Peru, Equador targets gang that used credentials obtained from phishing attacks to unlock stolen phones; sold those services to crooks, 483,000 victims; 17 arrested

Maryland: Nigerian man extradited from France; used ID theft to get FEMA benefits; got more than $8 million

Countries sharing data to fight online fraud.  That’s good thing. It would be great to share consumer complaints between countries to target fraudsters, and much data/evidence is held in the US an d other countries. A new UN Convention seems aimed at such problem, but commentators warn about some serious risks for free expression and other rights.

Full Report here

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Europol takes down encrypted messaging system Ghost, used by international criminals; 51 arrested worldwide; had servers in Iceland and France; owners lived in Australia

Countries sharing data to fight online fraud.  That’s good thing. It would be great to share consumer complaints between countries to target fraudsters, and much data/evidence is held in the US and other countries. A new UN Convention seems aimed at such problem, but commentators warn about some serious risks for free expression and other rights.

Full report here

FBI’s Internet Fraud Complaint Center issues new report on crypto fraud

• Victims reported losses of $5.6 billion in crypto in 2023
• That’s a 45% increase over the 2022
• Investments, almost surely meaning crypto romance fraud, accounted for 71% of those losses
• But also large sums lost to tech support and romance scams
• Most of those complaints were from people over 60
• These complaints account for half of all reported money losses

FINcen releases in depth report on check fraud due to mail theft

• Studied February through August 2023
• Most common stolen checks are altered and deposited
• Second most common is checks used as templates for a counterfeit check
• Third was just signing and depositing checks
• Most fake checks deposited through ATM’s
• Here’s the study I did on fake check fraud

North Dakota: Nigerian man gets 142 months, over ten years prison, for scheme that hired a law firm with a fake check  and then “canceled” asking for money to be sent back by wire transfer

DOJ begins second phase of returning money to fraud victims who sent money through Western Union; $18.5 million is going to 3000 people

Full Report here

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FTC reports US seniors lost $110 million to frauds where payment was made through Bitcoin ATM’s last year

• Volume of reported losses grew tenfold since 2020
• Reported losses $65 million first half of 2024
• Two thirds of losses by those over 60
• 88% of those who used Bitcoin ATM to send money to a scam involved tech support scams or impersonation of the government or a business
• Number of machines in the US went from 4250 in January 2020 to 32,000 in June 2024

FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center issues warning that North Korean hackers are actively reaching out to employees of crypto sites; very sophisticated; learn about victims on social media and target them; may impersonate real contacts; may build “relationships” over time before providing innocuous attachments that contain malware

Full Report here

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Santa Barbara woman whose packages were being stolen from her mailbox sends herself a package with an airtag; when it is stolen police track it and make two arrests  

Minnesota: Two men, one from Montreal, get 90 months and 120 months prison for scam telemarketing magazines to older victims; took in $300 million

How many fraud victims report to the law enforcement or the BBB? The FTC actually looked at this in a nationwide fraud survey, and found that less than 5% of them ever do.  Many are embarrassed, or don’t know where to report.  Victims are more likely to report some fraud than others.  Some don’t even realize that they have been defrauded.  But  this is important, since many of us received complaints and suspect, correctly, that these are just the top of the iceberg.

Review and Recommendation: Civilization, by Niall Ferguson. I’ve previously recommended his book Empire, on how the British Empire developed. In this one he expands on the subject of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel to ask why after 1500 the other emerging empires in China, the mideast, and elsewhere didn’t emerge to change the world like Europe did. Very good, and I highly recommend it.

Full Report here