Baker Fraud Report

Top Stories

Florida: Two Nigerian men get 10 years and 7 years prison for inheritance fraud that sent letters supposedly from bank in Spain to older Americans claiming that they had an inheritance; demanded fees to get the money; laundered money through other victims; duo had been extradited from Spain

Enforcement efforts are working!  New FTC report shows robocalls complaints have fallen to a five year low

New BBB Scam Tracker report on frauds hitting younger consumers

• Those 18-24 have highest median dollar losses than any other group
• Top three frauds for this group are online shopping, job frauds, and crypto investments

WSJ:  Chinese criminals behind crypto romance frauds in SE Asia, and China is trying to crack down on it

Three extradited to the US from Morocco and Romania; had run reshipping scheme from Russia that used stolen credit card information to order goods online and be shipped within the US, and then had goods reshipped to Russia and Eastern Europe; at least $48 million involved

Review and recommendation:  I just finished Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk.  It is fascinating.  Creator of PayPal, Space X, Tesla, the Boring Company, and several other companies that would be great accomplishments standing alone.   Plus now Twitter.  And he’s not done yet.   Like Ford, Edison,  Rockefeller,  Carnegie and Vanderbilt he’s made a big improvement in everyday lives

Full report here

Australia busts massive operation run by China that laundered fraud money from around the world; handles $229 million; seven arrested; $50 million in property seized

Quebec arrests 17 in $5 million real estate scheme; used ID theft to get mortgage loans on houses they didn’t own

Vermont: Woman from India who lived in Florida pleads not guilty when charged with tech support fraud where victims were contacted by email claiming to be from Geek Squad; moved money from victim’s savings accounts to checking, and claimed they had accidentally made too large a “refund” and victim to return “excess” to them; part of a larger group charged

Full Report here

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India: Five from Nigeria convicted of black money scam; convinced victims to invest in chemicals that could supposedly remove ink from trunk full of cash

Malaysia: Police say that in the last nine months they are arrested over 1000 scammers from fraud call centers, raided 148 locations

Full report here

Global scam study concludes 25% of people worldwide have been scam victims with losses of over $1 trillion

FTC issues new report to Congress on frauds against older victims

• Investment frauds; tech support scams and business impersonation top the list

DOJ releases report on elder fraud to Congress

Tampa: Man extradited from Moldova and charged; sold computer passwords on the dark web; had at least 350,000

India undertakes national crackdown on tech support operations; raids 76 locations

India: Mumbai police raid call center defrauding Canadians by claiming they were law enforcement and need to keep victim money “safe;” five employees leap from top of one story building to escape and are injured; 17 arrested

Full report here

Top Stories

FTC releases study with data on scams that begin on social media

• One quarter of victims reporting since 2021 say scam began on social media, with losses of $2.7 billion
• More than any phone, email or any other method of contact
• Younger people hit harder; 47% with victims 18-19; 38% of those 20-29
• 44% of losses due to online shopping where goods were never delivered, mainly clothing and electronics
• But 53% of the money lost was to investments; mainly crypto romance fraud

Full report here

At least some police really can recover crypto stolen by scammers

Los Angeles: Three from China convicted by jury of gift card fraud; callers overseas claimed to be police or other authorities and assessed “fines”, also worked for tech support scam; had victims buy Target gift cards, which defendants laundered; handled $2.5 million

Full report here

North Carolina: Nigerian man found guilty after trial for scheme that contacts lawyers and asked to be represented; sent them a fake counterfeit check as payment, and then canceled and asked for a refund by bank transfer; got over $20 million
 
New Jersey: Two men from India get 41 months prison each for fraud that used robocalls from India to impersonate the Social Security Administration or the FBI and DEA; handled $1.2 million of victim money
 
New Facebook scam claims to be giving away laptop or Playstation, but asks for money to pay shipping; no product exists

Australia reports that scams calling Chinese speakers, claiming to be with the Chinese government, and threatening arrest or deportation, have recently doubled; demand victims pay a “fine.”

India busts eight tech support fraud call centers; arrest over 200

Full Report here

7^th Circuit affirms the FTC’s use of Section 19 to get restitution for fraud victims; case had gone to the Supreme Court

Hackers in North Korea stole $200 million in 2023; over $2 billion in the last five years

FinCEN issues alert warning of increase in mail theft; fake checks

New scam tactic?  Caesars casino in Las Vegas suffered a ransomware attack after a caller pretended to be an employee who wanted to change their password.  Who monitors password change requests at your organization? Is it pretty easy to change one?

Chinese hackers get access to the US government email system Is this a worldwide effort?  I’ve also seen recent reports of similar problems in Canada, the UK, and Sri Lanka.

Full Report here

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CFPB settles with Lexington law firm; did business also as creditrepair.com; get $2.7 Billion judgment; company now in bankruptcy

Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre reports sharp increase in scams offering jobs at home working on apps; claim to pay in crypto; set up online account for victims showing money increases, but can never withdraw it

FBI, working with seven European countries, takes down Qakbot botnet operation that sent spam with attachments containing malware that affected 700,000 worldwide To dismantle the botnet, the FBI gained lawful access to Qakbot’s infrastructure and redirected Qakbot traffic to FBI-controlled servers, which instructed infected computers to download an uninstaller file. This uninstaller was created by law enforcement to untether the victims’ computers from the Qakbot botnet, preventing further installation of malware through Qakbot.

United Nations report says at least 120,00 people in Myanmar and 100,000 in Cambodia are being forced to operate scams

• Includes crypto romance scams and illegal gambling

Three Nigerian men extradited from the UK get prison for inheritance scams; 90 months, 87 months, and 82 months

Full report here

Top Stories

Social Catfish releases report on State of Internet Scams, using FTC and IC3 data, as well as their own survey

• Losses have increased have at least quadrupled over the last five years, from $2.7 billion to $103 billion
• Estimate real annual losses to romance scams at $200 billion
• Massive increase in victims 20 and under
• Most common apps used were Facebook, Google Hangouts, WhatsApp; Instagram and Plenty of Fish
• State by state breakdown

DOJ announces nationwide coordinated effort to fight Covid 19 fraud;

• 371 arrested; losses of $836 million
• Many, or most, cases involved PPP fraud or unemployment fraud

UK jury finds t wo teenagers guilty of ransomware attacks, hacking; victims in include City of London Police, Nvidia, Rockstar Games, and Uber

FBI identifies crypto accounts containing more than $40 million stolen by North Korea

Australia arrests Chinese man involved in scam that took $100 from US victims in crypto romance scams

Full study here