NAB and AFP warn Australians of scam

Chris Sheehan of NAB Executive Group Investigations spoke with Chris Goldsmid, Acting Assistant Commissioner and Cyber ​​Commander of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) at a Trans-Tasman Business Circle event in Sydney on Wednesday.

The following excerpts from the discussion, hosted by Joyce Moullakis, The Australian’s Senior Banking Reporter, highlight the complexities of the scam ecosystem and how to tackle the epidemic.

Scams and Fraud in the Digital Age

“We’re honestly in the middle of a digital crime wave. I don’t like to use dramatic language when it comes to this kind of thing. But the reality is that’s where we are,” Sheehan said.

“It is a form of crime that, make no mistake about it, is driven by transnational organised crime groups.”

Criminals search for victims online

According to Mr Sheehan, one of the most worrying aspects of fraud is the large number of victims involved at each stage of the scam cycle.

“Most of the scams that affect our customers originate via an online platform, a social media service, a phone call, a text message or a messaging service like WhatsApp. That’s not made up data. That’s reality,” Sheehan said.

“Criminals are putting this bait out on all sorts of different platforms hoping that someone will do business with them. And when they do do business with them, they use a whole range of very sophisticated social engineering and psychological engineering techniques to hook them.

“There are victims at every stage of a scam’s lifecycle. It’s definitely a victim-heavy crime type and it’s not going to stop anytime soon.”

Complex ecosystems

Mr. Goldsmid highlighted the complex ecosystem surrounding fraud.

“We see a very complex ecosystem around this issue, which is driven by transnational, serious organised crime,” Goldsmid said.

“There’s a whole supply chain around it, from the people who provide the marketplaces and forums to sell these tools, selling the stolen data, selling the customer lists, to the people who provide the financial services and the money laundering mechanism.”

Lifting the veil on money mules

According to Goldsmid, the AFP is seeing massive recruitment of people who unknowingly become money mules and thus facilitate the money laundering mechanism associated with fraudulent activities.

“We see it in romance scams. We see a lot of people being recruited as money mules who may not know what they’re being recruited for and may not know that they’re actually part of a criminal network and a money laundering network,” Goldsmid said.

According to Mr Sheehan, cash couriers pose a challenge for banks.

“What we see is that there are a lot of people being recruited who are unknowingly money mules, and we see that with international students as well,” Sheehan said.

Banks and law enforcement work together

According to Goldsmid, banks and law enforcement agencies regularly share information and work together to combat crime.

“I think we have a good system in place through Report Cyber. I think that’s definitely something we’re looking at; what more can we do by working with industry.

“I think the appeal here is one of the things that we’re doing through the JPC3 in Sydney, the Dolos taskforce, a taskforce that was set up to focus on business email compromise. It’s a very close partnership between law enforcement and the banks, and we’ve been quite successful. It relies on early reporting, sharing of information between law enforcement… I think we’ve raised over $66 million that we’ve been able to pay back to victims through that process, and that’s something we’re looking to build on going forward.”

We can’t do it alone – an Australia-wide approach is needed

According to Goldsmid, while the government is working to build resilience, it is important to ensure that the ecosystem works together to disrupt criminal activity.

“I mean, from a government perspective, there’s certainly a lot of work going on to educate the community and build resilience to scams,” Goldsmid said.

“There is a range of different operational activities that really depend on that close collaboration with industry.

“Whether it’s taking sites offline, working with telecoms and banks to tackle phishing, or companies that have been compromised… preventative work is a high priority for us.”