ACFE Fraud Conference: Breaking Down Silos in Fraud

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!

I always say fraud is a team sport, and this episode is exactly why.

I recorded these conversations live from the ACFE fraud conference in Boston, sitting down with five fraud fighters who each bring a completely different piece of the puzzle. Law enforcement. Banking. Government. Fintech. BSA. Investigations. Every single one of them came back to the same point: we cannot fight fraud alone, and the silos we work in are one of the biggest advantages we are handing to fraudsters.

Marc Evans opened the conversation by making the case that fraud analyst training has to be rooted in real cases, not theory. Linda Miller followed with one of the most honest takes of the day: the organizations waiting for regulatory guidance before building their AI governance frameworks are already behind. Tracy Swaim added something I had never heard framed so cleanly, that document fraud is a context problem, not a technology problem. And Dustin Eaton brought it back to the data: clean, collective information is the edge, and fraudsters are counting on us not having it.

Jen Lamont closed it out with a reminder that hit close to home. For every fraud fighter who cannot make it to a conference like this, the knowledge is still out there. Podcasts, white papers, LinkedIn, local and international fraud associations. This community is one of the most generous there is.

And if there is one thing I took away from all five conversations, it is this: fraudsters share everything with each other. Until we do the same, we are always playing catch-up.

What you’ll hear in this episode:

Why the ACFE fraud conference brings together fraud fighters from banking, government, law enforcement, fintech, and investigations under one roof
How cross-sector fraud prevention helps organizations identify emerging threats faster
Why breaking silos in fraud is one of the biggest opportunities facing our industry right now
What Marc Evans has learned training new fraud analysts using real investigations and holistic case data
Why AI governance is outpacing organizational readiness, and what Linda Miller says financial institutions should do before regulations catch up
How Tracy Swaim reframes document fraud detection around interrogating context rather than authenticating the document itself
Why clean and connected data is the foundation of effective AI-driven fraud prevention, according to Dustin Eaton
How Jen Lamont approaches fraud analyst training, mentorship, and continuous learning for fraud teams at every level
Career advice for new fraud fighters from five professionals who have built careers across every corner of this industry

You should listen to this episode if you:

Attend fraud conferences and want practical ideas you can bring back to your team
Lead a fraud, investigations, risk, or financial crimes program and want to strengthen cross-sector fraud prevention
Are responsible for fraud analyst training or new fraud analyst onboarding
Want to understand how AI governance and deepfake document fraud are reshaping the threat landscape
Are early in your fraud career and want honest advice from professionals across banking, government, law enforcement, and fintech

Episode notes

Collaboration is our biggest advantage

Fraudsters share information constantly across Telegram, Signal, LinkedIn, and every platform they can find. They adapt quickly and learn from one another. Fraud fighters, by contrast, tend to stay in their lanes. Marc Evans and Jen Lamont both made the same point from different angles: the fraud fighter community is most effective when it stops treating knowledge as something to protect and starts treating it as something to share.

Training built on real investigations

Marc Evans explained how his training curriculum for financial institutions is built entirely from real cases. He has talked to victims, banks, and suspects. That ground-level perspective gives new fraud analysts a head start that theory alone cannot provide. Tracy Swaim and Jen Lamont both reinforced this: strong fraud teams are built through mentorship, curiosity, and the willingness to go down a rabbit hole even when the queue is long.

Document fraud and the limits of technology

Tracy Swaim shared a sobering takeaway from the morning keynote at the conference. There is currently no technology solution that can reliably detect AI-generated documents with forensically consistent metadata. The response is not to wait for one. It is to interrogate the context around the document: the person, the company, the timing, the behavior.

AI is outpacing governance

Linda Miller has been watching this play out across government agencies and financial institutions. Organizations are adopting AI tools faster than they are building the governance frameworks to support them. Her advice: do not wait for regulations. Build your framework now around what you believe will be acceptable, and adjust when the rules catch up. Those who are waiting will face a much bigger problem later.

Data is the edge

Dustin Eaton made the case that fraudsters are always working from fragmented data, piecing together breaches, social engineering, and outbound calls. When fraud teams can centralize and connect their data across silos, the patterns that fraudsters rely on hiding inside the noise start to become visible.

Community is how we move forward

Jen Lamont closed the episode with a reminder that the resources to keep learning are everywhere. Podcasts, white papers, LinkedIn, local fraud associations, international organizations. Attending a conference like ACFE is a privilege not everyone has access to every year. Using every free resource available in between is how the fraud fighter community stays sharp together.

Key takeaways

Breaking silos in fraud strengthens fraud prevention across every industry
Cross-sector fraud prevention helps organizations respond faster to emerging threats
Fraud analyst training grounded in real investigations builds stronger, more confident teams
AI governance needs to move faster than regulation, not wait for it
Document fraud detection now depends on contextual analysis, not document authentication alone
Communication, collaboration, and continuous learning remain the most effective fraud prevention best practices
Every fraud fighter, at every level and in every sector, has something valuable to contribute to the broader fraud fighter community

Final takeaway

None of us can fight fraud alone. Whether you work in banking, fintech, law enforcement, investigations, government, or risk management, you are seeing part of the story. The more we share what we are learning, the better prepared we all become.

That is exactly why I love the ACFE fraud conference. It puts people who care about this mission in the same room and lets the conversations happen. Those conversations do not end when the conference does. They continue every time we choose collaboration over competition.

Episode resources & links:

Connect with Marc Evans, CFE | LinkedIn
Founder of Fraud Hero
Fraud/Cyber Crimes Detective
Keynote Speaker
Certified Fraud Examiner

Connect with Linda Miller, OLY | LinkedIn
Fraud Prevention Expert
Olympian
Co-Founder Program Integrity Alliance

Connect with Tracy Swaim, CFE, ACP | LinkedIn
Fraud Risk Manager

Connect with Dustin J. Eaton CFE CAMS CFCI CFCS CAFP CGSS CAMS-RM CAFS | LinkedIn
Published Thought Leader
ACAMS Faculty Member
CEP Magazine Contributor
ACFE Advisory Council
ACFE Mentor

Connect with Ruth K. BSA, AML, CTF | LinkedIn
Southwest Heritage Bank

Connect with Jen Lamont, CFE, CBSAP | LinkedIn
Fraud Strategist Point Predictive

Connect with Hailey Windham, CFCS | LinkedIn
Host of the Fraud Forward Podcast
Banking Community Lead at Sardine
Certified Financial Crimes Specialist (CFCS)
2023 Credit Union Rockstar, CU Magazine
Continuous Improvement Award, SAFE Federal Credit Union, 2023
Top 20 Professionals Under 40, The Sumter Item, 2022