Discord brings together all sorts of communities drawing the attention of investigators and intelligence analysts Discord is a social media that’s best described as Slack for entertainment. It gained popularity in the gaming community with its ability to stream, video chat, and organize channels based on interests. After the gamers, other groups started to frequent this social media, creating open and invite-only communities. While some people organize to share cooking recipes, others use Discord as a communication channel for criminal activity, extremism, and radicalizing youth. There are man ..read more

The U.S. victims lost unbelievable $10 billion to fraud in 2023 The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released its annual fraud statistics for the last year and the numbers are shocking. The fraud losses increased 14 percent compared to 2022 and hit the new benchmark of $10 billion. Altogether, more than 2.5 million fraud reports were recorded by the FTC last year. We know that a lot of scams go unreported so the real number might be significantly higher. The median money loss in scams was $500 and in more than 98 thousand cases victims lost more than $10,000. 24 percent of victims were contacted ..read more

The most common tax scams and their telltale signs Our favorite time of the year has come and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is breathing down our necks. It’s also a perfect time for fraudsters to steal our sweet tax refunds. In 2023, the IRS investigated 87,591 fraud cases with $1.2 billion in fraudulent refunds and flagged 2.4 million tax returns worth $13.8 billion for suspicion of identity theft. The majority of IRS scams start with someone impersonating an IRS agent and demanding to provide money or information. Fraudsters also urge victims to act immediately out of fear of punishment ..read more

General considerations for investigators who want to record over the phone or in-person conversations Recording conversations is a common practice in our personal and professional lives, particularly for investigators. However, the legality of such recordings can be murky, especially when intended for use in legal proceedings. According to U.S. federal law, at least one participant must know the conversation is being recorded. Yet, individual state laws introduce specific nuances that investigators must navigate to ensure compliance. Two main types of state laws governing consent exist. You c ..read more

How real customers become fraudsters and what to do about it An investigator from a new financial start-up shared a story with me a few years ago. Their marketing team was trying to get more new customers and announced a campaign where every new client who opened an account would get a $20 credit. As usual, the marketing team didn’t talk to the risk team and didn’t consider potential abuse issues. In a matter of days, they got hit with thousands of new sign-ups, after which new clients moved money out of the accounts immediately. The business learned what is promo fraud in a very efficient way ..read more

Basics of genealogy research to find any grave, burial, or cemetery Halloween is coming and it’s time to visit graves and cemeteries! Grave search is usually a part of genealogy research but can be useful in some traditional investigative cases as well. The work to digitize burials and death records is usually done by volunteers and the information is mostly free. Many online search websites for gravesites and burials can point to a specific location. Most search engines require a name, years of life and a cemetery where a person was buried. Some services show family connections to other buria ..read more

You might have given money to a donation scam without knowing it High-profile disasters create a wave of criminals taking advantage of people who want to help victims. Charity scams proliferate on social media and crowdfunding sites, and fraudsters use emails, calls, or home visits to get what they want. After the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war, social media removed hundreds of charities that were created days after the beginning of the conflict and took donations in cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Right now, Facebook is filled with new pages that ask for donations for victims of the Israel/HA ..read more

And how to easily find unexpectedly private documents in any search engine A search for documents in Google can bring fascinating results. Many uploaded PDFs and other documents have non-indexed content or content that is very deep in the search results. Searching directly for specific types of files can help to remove noise and find very private information. For example, in 2018, a researcher was running a search on Google and found that the United Nations accidentally exposed passwords and internal documents by uploading them to public services. There are special Google commands that can hel ..read more

Fake accounts that both bad actors and legitimate investigators use to gather information and how to recognize them Every day I have suspicious accounts that try to befriend me on LinkedIn and other social media. Some have AI-generated images or gender mismatches, others are half-empty and have name patterns with other users who tried to become my friends yesterday. And some of them are well-aged accounts with following and posts. They are all sock puppets or bots, and they are created to gather information or be involved in illicit activities. This activity goes against the Terms of Service o ..read more

A very personal and slightly shameful story about me losing too much money to fraud I moved to the U.S. many years ago and it took me a long time to improve my English and find a job. While I was doing that, I decided to find a short-term side hustle just to be occupied and make some money. I always enjoyed teaching and I had experience teaching the Russian language so I decided to join a few tutoring websites. New York had a huge community of immigrants who spoke Russian and I was curious if someone would be interested in the culture and connection. After a few weeks, I got a request from a w ..read more