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Quick Overview

• Scams Go Beyond Emails, Calls, and Texts

• FBI Arrests 5 Chinese Nationals Involved in Multin …

  • Initial Contact - Tech Scam

  • Building Trust

  • Payment System

Scams Go Beyond Emails, Calls, and Texts

When I think of scams, I typically think of a call from an unknown number, a text message from a stranger or an email impersonating a trusted brand or promising riches.

Today, we’re going to discuss other ways that scammers can create that initial connection - advertisements.

Scamming is a highly-profitable, multi-billion dollar business with major criminal organizations at the helm. They use every outlet possible to build a connection with you, including pop-up ads or TV advertisements.

When the ad is on Google or Facebook or on your favorite website, the brand feels more trustworthy. This is what scammers count on. These criminals want you to believe they’re a legitimate company so they can scam you.

I wasn’t able to find the actual ads the criminals used in the scam article below, but I will start researching other scams that utilize ads for next week’s newsletter. In the meantime - if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Stay safe out there,

FBI Arrests 5 Chinese Nationals Involved in Multinational Tech Scam Targeting Seniors

On July 31, an unsealed indictment revealed a complex scam and money laundering scheme that resulted in losses of more than $27 million to over 2,000 seniors.

According to the indictment, victims sent wire transfers or cash in express mail packages to locations throughout Southern California, Nevada, and elsewhere. The criminals would provide fake names and addresses corresponding with retail locations, including CVS Pharmacy. Then, the criminals would use fake IDs to pick up the packages stuffed with money.

Fortunately, the FBI was working the case and able to bring this group down.

“Every day swindlers entangle unsuspecting seniors into scams to steal their hard-earned savings,” said U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath. “We urge everyone to use caution and consult with others before sending money to strangers they know only through phone calls, texts, or a computer.”

This was all part of a tech scam that involved criminals from China and India with unique methods of contacting victims and laundering the money.

Let’s dig into it.

Initial Contact - Tech Scam

A lot of tech scams involve sending you unsolicited emails impersonating trusted companies like Microsoft with the goal of getting you to respond or click on a link that may cause issues with your computer.

In a common tech scam, criminals convince victims to grant access to their computer. What’s interesting to me is the method used to initiate contact and the payment process.

In addition to reaching out victims by phone and email, these criminals used pop-up ads targeting seniors. That means, they were spending the time, effort, and money to create a fake company, create fake ads, and run the ads consistently. The goal of the ads was to lure victims into contacting scam call centers in India.

This is very telling of the sophistication and effort put into stealing from seniors. What this tells me is:

• Less people are falling for the phone or email scams. The scammers are using additional methods to initiate contact.

• Ad platforms (Google, Facebook, etc..) need to step up their efforts to monitor advertisers. They know that if it’s an ad on Google or FB, we are more likely to believe it’s a legitimate company.

• These criminal enterprises are willing to put the time, effort, and money to steal from seniors on a massive scale

Building Trust

Using social engineering techniques, the criminals would build trust with their victims and ask them to install remote desktop software. This software allowed the criminals to take control of the computer from thousands of miles away.

From there, the criminals at the call center in India would either impersonate government officials, bank officers, or technical support to scam victims into giving money to the Chinese Nationals living in California and Nevada.

Payment System

Once the scam was set, victims were directed to wire transfer cash or send the money via USPS, Fed Ex or UPS. From there, the 5 Chinese Nationals would pick up the money and launder it through cryptocurrency transactions to their India-based co-conspirators.

More people are becoming aware of the gift card scams and criminals are turning to alternative methods, including gold bars, wire transfers, or sending cash.

The full scale of this criminal enterprise is not known but the FBI was able to track $27 Million in losses from 2002 victims between 2021 and 2023.