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FRAUDFORWARD
#117

IAFCI, parte 2: prueba de sonido de Fraud Fighter sobre el fraude B2B

45 min

¿Qué tal, luchadores contra el fraude? ¡Bienvenidos de nuevo a Fraud Forward!

Este es otro episodio sin guion, grabado en directo y sobre el terreno durante IAFCI International en Nashville. Estoy dedicando más tiempo a hablar con quienes combaten el fraude desde todos los frentes. Esta vez hablamos del fraude al consumidor, el robo de identidad, las estafas románticas, la toma de control de cuentas en aplicaciones de banca personal y otros temas que suelen aparecer en las noticias de la noche. Pero las empresas también son víctimas de fraude y, cuando ocurre, las consecuencias no se limitan al balance financiero. Afectan al empleo y a las comunidades, pero apenas llegan a los titulares.

Estas conversaciones abordarán muchos temas, entre ellos uno que quizá no recibe ni de lejos la atención que merece: el fraude B2B. Hablaremos de la verificación de la identidad empresarial, las empresas sintéticas, las lagunas regulatorias que están surgiendo en torno a la titularidad real y los ámbitos en los que la IA está ayudando de verdad, en lugar de limitarse a generar más ruido.

Toma asiento y entremos en materia con los expertos en la lucha contra el fraude, que compartirán sus opiniones sobre el fraude B2B, las entidades sintéticas y todo lo que la IA está cambiando de cara a los próximos desafíos.

Lo que escucharás en este episodio:

  • Por qué el fraude B2B recibe mucha menos atención que el fraude al consumidor, aunque sus repercusiones en los empleados y las comunidades pueden ser igual de graves.
  • Cómo resulta cada vez más fácil crear entidades empresariales sintéticas y cometer fraudes relacionados con la titularidad real, y por qué los recientes cambios en las normas de FinCEN sobre titularidad están ampliando esa brecha.
  • Un ejemplo real de cómo el fraude por correo electrónico empresarial alcanzó el mayor volumen registrado en la historia de FinCEN, y de cómo los mercados de bandejas de entrada empresariales comprometidas permiten a los delincuentes estudiar los patrones de correo electrónico de una empresa antes de atacar.
  • Qué significa realmente el fraude de identidad abandonada: delincuentes que explotan las identidades de bebés, personas fallecidas y personas que simplemente no supervisan su propio historial crediticio.
  • Por qué se están pasando por alto las vulnerabilidades tradicionales al fraude bancario, como el fraude mediante transferencias internacionales que tarda en detectarse, mientras la atención de todos se centra en la IA y las criptomonedas.
  • Un marco práctico para la detección proactiva del fraude, que abarca la detección más allá del inicio de sesión y explica por qué la verdadera lucha comienza antes de que alguien llegue siquiera a tu aplicación.
  • Cómo se utilizan las soluciones de detección de fraude por capas y las herramientas de IA agéntica contra el fraude para detectar ataques potenciados por IA, incluido el caso de una institución financiera que registró 250.000 altas de cuentas fraudulentas en cuestión de días.
  • Por qué la colaboración en la conferencia de la IAFCI —una conversación compartida, una llamada de seguimiento, un número guardado tras una buena charla— sigue siendo una de las herramientas más eficaces para combatir el fraude.

Deberías escuchar este episodio si:

  • Trabajas en banca empresarial, préstamos comerciales o detección de fraude B2B y quieres que esta categoría se tome en serio.
  • Son responsables de la verificación de la identidad empresarial y quieren comprender cómo está evolucionando el fraude relacionado con la titularidad real ante las nuevas normas de FinCEN.
  • Se han visto afectados por ataques de compromiso del correo electrónico empresarial o quieren entender cómo funcionan realmente los mercados de bandejas de entrada empresariales comprometidas.
  • Están desarrollando o evaluando sistemas de detección de fraude por capas y quieren ver ejemplos reales de herramientas de IA agéntica contra el fraude en entornos de producción.
  • Consideran que la detección del fraude más allá del inicio de sesión es tan importante como cualquier actividad que tenga lugar dentro de su aplicación.
  • Quieren comprender de primera mano por qué la colaboración en las conferencias de IAFCI se menciona una y otra vez como la mayor ventaja de quienes combaten el fraude.
Notas del episodio

Por qué el fraude B2B merece la misma atención que el fraude al consumidor

Llevamos décadas concienciando a la sociedad sobre el fraude al consumidor, y con razón. Pero son las empresas las que dan empleo a las personas. Cuando el fraude B2B afecta los resultados de una empresa, tarde o temprano también repercute en el sueldo de alguien. Varias conversaciones en esta conferencia volvieron una y otra vez a la misma frustración. Quienes combaten el fraude en el ámbito B2B por fin cuentan con un marco sólido para entender cómo se manifiesta el fraude empresarial. Y todo empieza por investigar toda la red vinculada a una empresa, no solo la empresa en sí.

Entidades empresariales sintéticas y la brecha en la identificación de los beneficiarios finales

En esa misma conversación se analizó en profundidad por qué cada vez es más fácil crear entidades empresariales sintéticas y más difícil detectarlas. Un cambio reciente en la normativa de FinCEN sobre la titularidad implica que se conservan menos datos al respecto. Esto plantea una cuestión importante: quién es ahora responsable de verificarlos. Si a ello se suman los recursos limitados para verificar la identidad de las empresas y la proliferación de herramientas de IA que abaratan la creación de identidades sintéticas, el resultado es un aumento real de la brecha que facilita el fraude relacionado con la titularidad real.

El fraude por correo electrónico empresarial alcanza un máximo histórico

Uno de los datos más contundentes de toda la conferencia surgió durante una conversación precisamente sobre este tema. En julio de 2026 se registró el mayor volumen de incidentes de vulneración del correo electrónico empresarial en la historia documentada de FinCEN. Lo que más me llamó la atención fue conocer los mercados de buzones de correo empresariales comprometidos. Se trata de mercados en línea donde los delincuentes no se limitan a comprar herramientas de phishing, sino que adquieren acceso directo a buzones reales de empresas. A partir de ahí, estudian los patrones de comunicación antes de enviar una factura fraudulenta que parece totalmente legítima.

Fraude de identidad abandonada, un término que conviene conocer

En esta conferencia conocí una expresión que no había oído antes: fraude de identidad abandonada. Se refiere al uso de identidades de personas que no supervisan activamente su propia situación financiera. Pensemos en bebés, personas fallecidas y antiguos inmigrantes que quizá no revisen de cerca su historial crediticio. Los delincuentes utilizan cada vez más estas identidades inactivas para abrir cuentas, constituir empresas y solicitar préstamos sin ser detectados.

El fraude bancario tradicional no ha desaparecido

En medio de todo lo que se habló sobre IA en esta conferencia, una conversación sirvió como recordatorio de algo que parecía ir casi a contracorriente. Los canales tradicionales de transferencia de dinero, como las transferencias bancarias convencionales, siguen siendo algunos de los métodos de pago más vulnerables en la actualidad. Esto se debe precisamente a que gran parte de la atención del sector se ha desplazado hacia tecnologías de pago más recientes. Un ejemplo que se me quedó grabado fue ver cómo simples transferencias bancarias pasaban de Estados Unidos al Sudeste Asiático y luego se distribuían rápidamente entre decenas de cuentas. Es un patrón que puede pasar fácilmente desapercibido si ya nadie lo busca de forma activa.

Trasladar la detección del fraude a una fase anterior a la página de inicio de sesión

Otro tema que surgió una y otra vez fue que la mayoría de las herramientas de detección del fraude siguen centrándose en la página de inicio de sesión y en todo lo que ocurre después. Sin embargo, la estafa suele comenzar mucho antes: una llamada telefónica, una página web suplantada o un intento de ingeniería social que tiene lugar completamente fuera de la aplicación. El argumento que escuché repetidamente era sencillo: detectar el fraude más allá del inicio de sesión permite frustrar un ataque antes de que llegue siquiera a tu puerta.

Herramientas de IA agéntica contra el fraude diseñadas para seguir el ritmo de los ataques potenciados por IA

El análisis técnico más detallado que escuché durante toda la conferencia explicaba cómo los delincuentes utilizan ahora la IA para ampliar la escala de ataques que antes requerían trabajo manual. Una institución financiera registró 250.000 aperturas de cuentas fraudulentas en cuestión de días debido a ello. La respuesta a semejante escala es una arquitectura de detección de fraude por capas, compuesta por agentes de IA encadenados. Un agente detecta anomalías. Otro investiga el patrón. Un tercero recomienda una nueva regla. Una persona sigue tomando la decisión final antes de que cualquier cambio entre en funcionamiento.

Por qué se sigue hablando de la colaboración en la conferencia de la IAFCI

En casi todas las conversaciones de este episodio, hubo un tema que resurgía una y otra vez sin que yo siquiera preguntara por él. Las relaciones que se forjan en conferencias como esta son las que realmente permiten resolver los casos, no solo las herramientas. A veces, se trata de que un investigador de fraude por fin tenga a quién llamar. Otras veces, de que dos instituciones se den cuenta de que están detectando exactamente el mismo patrón de ataque. En cualquier caso, la colaboración en las conferencias de la IAFCI aparece una y otra vez como el factor que más valoran quienes combaten el fraude.

Conclusiones clave
  • La detección del fraude B2B sigue contando con muchos menos recursos que la del fraude al consumidor, aunque el impacto para las empresas es igual de grave.
  • El fraude relacionado con la titularidad real está aumentando, ya que los cambios en las normas de FinCEN sobre la propiedad reducen los datos disponibles para verificar quién controla realmente una empresa.
  • El fraude por correo electrónico empresarial alcanzó en julio de 2026 el mayor volumen registrado en la historia de FinCEN, impulsado en parte por mercados de cuentas de correo empresarial comprometidas que venden acceso directo a buzones reales.
  • El fraude de identidad abandonada se dirige a personas que no supervisan activamente su propio historial crediticio, incluidos bebés, personas fallecidas y antiguos inmigrantes.
  • Las vulnerabilidades al fraude en la banca tradicional, especialmente en las transferencias bancarias transfronterizas, están recibiendo menos atención a medida que las instituciones centran su interés en la IA y las criptomonedas.
  • La detección proactiva del fraude consiste en identificar una estafa antes de que llegue a la página de inicio de sesión, no solo en supervisar la actividad una vez que alguien ha accedido a la aplicación.
  • Las soluciones de detección de fraude por capas, que combinan múltiples señales y proveedores, superan sistemáticamente a cualquier herramienta que funcione por sí sola.
  • Las herramientas de IA agéntica para combatir el fraude son ahora esenciales para hacer frente a la magnitud de los ataques impulsados por IA; una institución llegó a registrar 250.000 altas fraudulentas en cuestión de días.
  • La colaboración en la conferencia de IAFCI y las relaciones que se forjan a partir de una buena conversación siguen siendo una de las herramientas más eficaces y citadas de forma constante en el sector para combatir el fraude.
Conclusión final

Si algo dejaron claro estas conversaciones cara a cara en la IAFCI, es que el fraude B2B ha estado oculto a plena vista mientras la atención del sector se centra en el próximo gran titular sobre IA. Las mismas lagunas regulatorias, identidades inactivas y transferencias bancarias tradicionales que siempre han sido vulnerables siguen siéndolo; simplemente generan menos ruido que una historia viral sobre deepfakes. Quienes realmente están cerrando estas brechas no dependen de una sola herramienta ni de un único dato. Combinan distintas señales, adelantan la detección a etapas más tempranas del proceso y, por encima de todo, levantan el teléfono para llamar a alguien a quien conocieron precisamente así, en una conversación que comenzó en una conferencia creada justamente para ese fin.

Recursos y enlaces del episodio

Conecta con Soups Ranjan | LinkedIn
CEO y cofundador de Sardine

Andrew La Marca | LinkedIn
Vicepresidente y director de Fraude y Datos en Dun & Bradstreet
Presidente del capítulo de Las Vegas de la ACFE

Conecta con Alexandra Valencia | LinkedIn
Fundadora y detective de cumplimiento normativo en Crypto Made for Me
Experta mundial en delitos financieros
Exanalista de inteligencia de la DEA

Conecta con Devin Sorin | LinkedIn
Representante de desarrollo de negocio en Memcyco

Conecta con Matt Dotts | LinkedIn
Vicepresidente adjunto y responsable de concienciación sobre seguridad de la información en Mid Penn Bank
Exdetective de delitos cibernéticos y financieros
Exagente de un grupo de trabajo
Autor de Amenazas sin fronteras

Conecta con David Maimon | LinkedIn
Director de análisis de fraude en SentiLink
Director del Grupo de Investigación en Ciberseguridad Basada en Evidencia

Conecta con Kevin Hendricks | LinkedIn
Fundador de Ubivis Project
Investigador certificado de criptomonedas
Profesional certificado en activos digitales
Experto en la materia de CSIAC

Conecta con Hailey Windham, CFCS | LinkedIn
Presentadora del pódcast Fraud Forward
Responsable de la comunidad bancaria en Sardine
Especialista certificada en delitos financieros (CFCS)
Estrella de las cooperativas de crédito de 2023, CU Magazine
Premio a la Mejora Continua, SAFE Federal Credit Union, 2023
Una de las 20 mejores profesionales menores de 40 años, The Sumter Item, 2022

Episode transcript
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
00:05
Soups, thank you so much for joining me on Fraud Forward today.
soups
Soups Ranjan
00:09
It's exciting to be here. I can't believe this is the first time I'm coming to your show.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
00:12
I know. I know. I was thinking, when in the world am I going to get Soups? And it took Nashville. And I so I'm so glad to have you on.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
00:18
Andrew, thank you so much for joining me on Fraud Forward.
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
00:21
Thank you for having me.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
00:22
Absolutely. So, we are here today in IAFCI Nashville. I've got the cowboy hat and everything. Um, tell me uh first before we dive into it, uh, what are your thoughts so far on the conference this year?
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
00:31
Great conference. Um, I like the vibes.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
00:34
So true.
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
00:34
Fraud fighters, combating the problems, talking about the problems, real issues, real use case examples. Can never go wrong with it.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
00:42
Yeah, so true.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
00:42
I am joined by Alexandra Valencia. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
A woman with dark hair, wearing a black blazer and patterned blouse, smiles faintly with her arms crossed.
Alexandra Valencia
00:47
Same here.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
00:48
Yeah. So we are doing a uh fraud fighter soundcheck today. So that just means I'm gonna ask a couple of quick questions and then we'll we'll go about our conference. Because obviously there's a lot happening right now.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
00:58
Devin, thank you so much for joining me on Fraud Forward.
A smiling young man with light brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a navy suit jacket and white shirt.
Devin Sorin
01:00
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
01:02
Yeah, I would love it uh before we dive in if you could, you know, give us a brief intro, you know, uh where you work, what you do.
A smiling young man with light brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a navy suit jacket and white shirt.
Devin Sorin
01:09
Of course. I uh work in business development. At a company called Memcyco. Um we work in account takeover scams in a little bit more of a proactive manner.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
01:16
Yeah. Nice.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
01:17
I'm here with Matt Dotts. Matt, I'm so glad you agreed to join me on the podcast.
A smiling man with glasses in a blue suit jacket and light blue shirt against a blue background.
Matt Dotts
01:20
Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
01:21
Of course.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
01:22
David, thank you so much for joining me on Fraud Forward Live here in Nashville.
Portrait of a man with grey hair and light stubble, wearing a suit jacket and white shirt, against a reddish textured wall.
David Maimon
01:26
Thank you so much for having me.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
01:27
Of course. Always. Uh, love to have you on. Uh, you always bring such great insights and uh, anyways, I I just love having a conversation with you. So,
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
01:35
Kevin, thank you so much for joining me on Fraud Forward today.
Headshot of a man in a blue plaid suit, pink shirt, and red tie.
Kevin Hendricks
01:38
Thank you, Hailey. You look wonderful. Um, you are definitely in your Dolly era down here in Nashville.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
01:44
I am. Oh, it's so sad that to to have her pass. And my grand daddy, actually sent him a picture of me the other day. Him and my uh nana, and uh my grand daddy responded, "You look just like Dolly." And it was the day she died. And it was the next message in the thread was Dolly Parton died. And I was like, "Oh no."
Headshot of a man in a blue plaid suit, pink shirt, and red tie.
Kevin Hendricks
02:01
And we just lost Tim Curry, another phenomenal actor. What a morose way to open the show.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
02:12
Thank you so much for that. I really appreciate you doing that. Yeah. bring
Headshot of a man in a blue plaid suit, pink shirt, and red tie.
Kevin Hendricks
02:15
We only can go up.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
02:16
Yeah, that's right. That's right. We can only go up from here. So, clearly we are at the IAFCI in Nashville. What are your thoughts so far?
Headshot of a man in a blue plaid suit, pink shirt, and red tie.
Kevin Hendricks
02:23
Wonderful conference. Um I love the venue obviously the Grand Hyatt. Uh so many great topics here being discussed. Very germane to anybody that that works in this space. And um I've only been here for about a day and a half, but I I've learned a lot in the time frame I've been here. So
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
02:42
So true. So true. Now, is there anything in particular that you love specifically about the IAFCI, the organization um over maybe any others? And I I don't mean to compare the others, but just what's so great about the IAFCI?
Headshot of a man in a blue plaid suit, pink shirt, and red tie.
Kevin Hendricks
02:54
It's such a uh a conglomerate of likeminded individuals on both the law enforcement side and the private sector side, the banking side. And it's very important to have that homeostasis of everyone working together. And I believe that's what this conference is about. That's the trajectory that we want. The, you know, the common enemy is fraud and scammers and things of that nature and there's no shortage of it. But there appears to be a uh a lopsided uh match here. Because obviously fraud is winning. And um you know it's it's important that we catch up to the trends. We are firstly aware of the trends in order to properly address them. And that's what this conference really uh hones in on.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
03:37
Yeah. Yeah. And Kevin, what is it that you do?
Headshot of a man in a blue plaid suit, pink shirt, and red tie.
Kevin Hendricks
03:40
So I am a cyber crime investigator per se, uh working in the law enforcement side. Um I've been recognized as a subject matter expert in this space. Uh particularly with an expertise in darknet related investigations. And obviously by proxy to that it's crypto, right? Like I feel you can't talk about the dark web if you're not talking about crypto. Because you know they're not they're not paying with they're not paying with your standard instruments of payment on there.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
04:05
No way.
Headshot of a man in a blue plaid suit, pink shirt, and red tie.
Kevin Hendricks
04:07
Yeah. So uh really that is how I have uh progressed my career. Um and at this conference specifically I'm talking about a platform that many have heard about uh called Telegram. And uh you know it's it's definitely a different trajectory for my presentation than than people in this space are used To. Because I've had so many presentations I've sat in on where everyone says Telegram is bad. And I say no it's actually good, and and let's actually understand it.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
04:37
Yeah. So I appreciate that and I love to know that that's the kind of perspective that that we're looking at today. And the reason why I wanted to to kind of give the audience a little bit of um your background is because then my next question is going to matter. Um so as far as fraud trends um now what do you see as one that's really picking up um in 2026? Maybe compared to others, or is it just a an accumulation of what we've seen in years prior?
Headshot of a man in a blue plaid suit, pink shirt, and red tie.
Kevin Hendricks
05:05
So, I think it is the same old song and dance, but just an updated tune. If that makes sense. Um, you know, the the way that these actors are able to socially engineer, the way that these actors are able to get you on the phone. To obviously uh defraud you in some way, shape, or form or communicate with you online. Um, their tactics have evolved. Um the uh understanding that listen this isn't a singular actor anymore. Like we want to think it's that hooded hacker in the lead bunker in Latvia and Estonia stealing our credit cards. When in reality it's these transnational criminal organizations that are thriving. Making billions of dollars. And um you know for them this is just business. And I I think when when we understand from a perspective of what what Paul and Aaron presented on, you know such a wonderful presentation of actually being there. Boots on the ground in Nigeria, to to actually talk to these actors who were willing to say, "Yeah, come and get us." Right? Like, and that's their that's their idea, like, "Come and get us." And for so long, we have just simply written off credit card fraud, um, cryptocurrency fraud. We've written off these things as nuisances. We haven't viewed them with the perspective that was necessary to to fully address how big this is. And I think obviously now in 2026, going into 2027, which is crazy, right? like 3 months we'll be in 2027. Uh or less than that. Oh no, four four months, 5 months. Um you know, AI is on everybody's lips. And again I I think this such a loaded term because you have that one perspective where everything is Skynet and it's going to take over the world. And then you have this other perspective where it's like listen you guys really don't understand what AI is, and how AI really works. And what these actors are able to do is they're able to manipulate chat bots to use uh clone voices and things of that nature to get people on the phone. They're able to use uh agentic AI to make it seem like you're in a FaceTime call with somebody when you do it. So, of course, their techniques are adapting and staying up to speed with current technologies, but at the end of the day, it's the same old same old thing, right? Getting somebody on the phone, hey, your bank account's been compromised, right? Uh give us your social security number so we know it's who you are. Oh, yes, of course. And that's how it all starts. So I think the more things change, the more they stay the same as much as a uh empty platitude that that is. Um but yes, this conference so far has addressed a lot of these emerging and withstanding issues. And uh for anyone who's ever been on the fence about coming here, you really need to get here. Because it's, there's nothing like it uh in this space. And in the United States, I would say.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
07:53
Yeah, it's so true. Well, internationally, you know, we are an international conference. Um, so if I had to sum that up with a Nashville theme, I'd say that you're saying that we used to be um, you know, our acoustic guitar sitting on a stool in some little podunk bar. And now we've got the whole studio, all the bells and whistles, all the buttons. Where it's like, yeah, it's the same tools. But now they've been able to uh, really enhance their craft and and do it at scale.
Headshot of a man in a blue plaid suit, pink shirt, and red tie.
Kevin Hendricks
08:19
Yeah.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
08:20
Uh, and and really hit us uh, where it hurts, so to speak.
Headshot of a man in a blue plaid suit, pink shirt, and red tie.
Kevin Hendricks
08:23
It's it's the uh the the techno remix of the boot scoot boogie, right? Like that's really what it comes down to. Um but I just think for people to truly understand the problem, you have to see the problem in real time, right? You have to talk to victims. People here who have been through the victim advocacy of raising awareness. To how a lot of victims of financial fraud and scams often they are unheard. Or it's not pursued to the fullest extent that it should. Right? And I've always made the analogy, somebody goes into a bank and takes out half a million dollars. That person's photo is going to be on every news channel. Everybody's looking for that person. Somebody deceives an elderly individual out of a $500,000 uh loan or something like that. And especially with an access to crypto.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
09:14
Yeah.
Headshot of a man in a blue plaid suit, pink shirt, and red tie.
Kevin Hendricks
09:15
Silence. Crickets, and and that's that's really the crux of the problem.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
09:19
So true. So true. Well, um again, we're we're here. We're talking about fraud. We're talking about fraud trends and and you've done a great job of uh really explaining kind of what what you're seeing. Um I completely agree even, you know, from the the banking side of things. Uh, so I have one final question for you. If you had one word to describe fraud for 2026, what would it be? To quote our former President George W. Bush, strategery. Um because it is true the the strategies that these actors are using are as much as they incorporate a lot of sophisticated elements, they are just the same tried and true scams we've been dealing with since the 80s and '90s. And the more things again change, the more they stay the same. And I think that when we start to fully address even credit card fraud, which for many is is viewed as just the cost of doing business, when we start to actually address these issues, with what they deserve. And it's not just law enforcement, it is our private sector partners. It is the banking is everyone has to be in unison about this. Um you know that that charge that got reversed because somebody bought a ticket. Personally, I know this because this was a case I investigated. Somebody bought a ticket on the now defunct RIP Spirit Airlines.
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Hailey Windham
10:42
Okay,
Headshot of a man in a blue plaid suit, pink shirt, and red tie.
Kevin Hendricks
10:43
For an individual using somebody else's credit card. But it turned out the ticket that they were buying was for a woman that was part of a human trafficking network. Right. But to the initial chargeback, they weren't investigating it any further. It was coming to understand that wait a minute there's a there's something going on here. And then came to find out oh wait there's multiple reservations across the country with stolen credit cards for these individuals that were being flown specific places for um for sex work.
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Hailey Windham
11:16
Yeah.
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Kevin Hendricks
11:16
So, thinking about it outside the box like that, um, honestly, if it wasn't from a law enforcement standpoint to see the correlation of those bookings and those stolen credit cards. I'm not naming names here, but the credit card company, which was a credit card company, very big credit card company, just wrote it off. Like, look, it's a $100 charge. Like, what are we going to do? Well, you know, we're not we're not, we're we're a multi-billion dollar business, and credit card fraud happens all the time. We cancel the card, we send them a new card, right? But it's just something to think about. So, uh I I feel, you know, this is something that is a very big problem and big problems require big solutions.
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Hailey Windham
12:00
So true. So true. Well, Kevin, thank you again so much for joining me on Fraud Forward. I appreciate you uh taking time out of your your morning this morning to join me. And yeah, I can't wait to have you back for another conversation.
Headshot of a man in a blue plaid suit, pink shirt, and red tie.
Kevin Hendricks
12:11
Anytime Hailey, thank you.
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Hailey Windham
12:12
So Andrew, tell me a little bit about yourself. What what is it that you do?
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
12:15
Yeah, so Hailey, I work for Dun and Bradstreet. So we are a commercial data provider. Um more specifically, I'm vice president of of our North America region as well as our um for some of our data management activities. So the ingestion, curation, creation of the DUNS number right in in in North America as well as our research function. Um, but more importantly as it relates to this conference, our head of fraud, right? So I I oversee the the data that our customers consume, making sure that they consume it, they can trust it, it's accurate, and they can make decisions off of it.
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Hailey Windham
12:45
I love that so much. So tell me a little bit more about your session. I'm hearing it's about B2B.
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
12:49
Yeah. So, um, I've been with D&B for coming up on 11 years, so I'm well versed in in the B2B world. Um what the problem that I'm seeing in the B2B world is not many people define it, classify it, know it, and are getting behind it the way that we are getting behind consumer fraud.
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Hailey Windham
13:06
Yeah.
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
13:07
Right. We spent decades, more than decades talking about consumer fraud. You turn on the nightly news, I always joke when Lester Holt was on the nightly news, um that's all he would talk about, right? Is identity, victims of identity theft, scams, nothing against it. All great content, but so are businesses.
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Hailey Windham
13:23
Yeah,
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
13:23
Businesses are who employ us. More fraud that you see, it's going to impact their bottom line.
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Hailey Windham
13:28
Yeah.
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
13:29
Which then impacts people's jobs. So, in this session, I'll be walking through people um what is business fraud? What does it look like? What's in the news? Um what are some use case examples that we at Dun and Bradstreet have seen? Um but then walking them through a framework of what to look for when investigating a business. Not just the business themselves, but the the network and everything that's connected to them.
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Hailey Windham
13:50
Yeah. So true. So, if you had a word to describe uh fraud for 2026, what do you think it would be?
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
13:55
A word to describe. So, are we talking about fraud in general or B2B fraud?
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Hailey Windham
13:58
Let's talk B2B fraud.
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
14:01
Surprising.
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Hailey Windham
14:02
Really?
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
14:03
I think it's surprising. Um, you know, obviously to be a business you have to be registered.
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Hailey Windham
14:08
Yeah,
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
14:08
We know that that's a massive gap and it's a huge risk. You get the ruling like you did last week from finCEN, right? All that data is being deleted. That then moves the needle. Who is now going to be responsible for identifying those owners and holding that and maintaining that. Um, coupled with them having lack of resources, being able to verify, should I say lack thereof. Um, and then the downstream impacts of that. Coupled with the AI and the explosion of how fraud service can now scale with AI.
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Hailey Windham
14:38
I know
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
14:38
You can create a synthetic entity pretty quick and it's very cheap.
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Hailey Windham
14:43
Very cheap. It it's crazy the the digital aspect of of our fraud fighting now. You know, we we've got AI. We can we can use it to help make us more efficient, but at the same time, the fraudsters are operating with the same AI tools. And unfortunately, they don't have the the same guardrails and rules and regulations that we do.
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
15:00
No guardrails.
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Hailey Windham
15:01
None. Absolutely. It's just, hey, let's try this and if it works, yay. If it doesn't, and then if it works, let's tell all our friends it works. And it's like, stop.
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
15:08
And and that's the thing that we're seeing. It's like a rinse and repeat, right? So we we even studied all of our all the failures. So all of our identity failures and just seeing how many how connective it is.
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Hailey Windham
15:19
Yeah.
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
15:19
Roughly all of our identity failures over the last three or four years have created about a thousand networks.
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Hailey Windham
15:25
Wow.
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
15:26
Just shows you how like how orchestrated this whole thing is. And how easy it is to create an entity and then transact as one. So it's it's pretty cool stuff.
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Hailey Windham
15:36
Yeah. Very cool. Uh so a final thought if there's any advice that you have for anyone um listening to the podcast. Uh either on B2B fraud or just on how to do better in the industry.
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
15:47
Yeah, I think it's it comes down to the basic, right? I I I'm obviously I'm a I'm a data person, right? So you got to know your data. Your data there there there's a quote actually in in my slide, if you torture your data, it will confess to everything. Um and I fully believe that especially in the fraud world. Um it will reveal the the goods, the bads, and the uglies. Um, but it'll also reveal where your gaps exist and how to implement uh controls to to help you know squash those a little bit. So that's what I would say.
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Hailey Windham
16:12
I love that. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Smiling bald man with a beard and glasses, wearing a white shirt with arms crossed.
Andrew La Marca
16:14
Thanks for having me.
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Hailey Windham
16:15
So the first question I want to ask is what fraud trend has your attention right now?
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Alexandra Valencia
16:19
So I work at a bank, and uh what we see is a lot of money going in. Well, this is traditional wire transfer. Like you would think that this doesn't happen but it still does. Right. You can see that the money goes from the US into uh Southeast Asia, and then once it hit this accounts, it just disperses like crazy.
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Hailey Windham
16:38
Yes.
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Alexandra Valencia
16:39
And this is just traditional banking.
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Hailey Windham
16:41
Yeah. Traditional banking. I I think that those traditional money rails are still probably some of our most vulnerable because we had to shift our focus to AI so much that now those are one of those things that's just kind of being left in the dust.
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Alexandra Valencia
16:55
Exactly. I think uh that's what we see a lot. Um going, which it was a little strange for me. Just because going from the US to Southeast Asia is not as unusual, but
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Hailey Windham
17:08
Right
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Alexandra Valencia
17:08
You know you always want to find out what is. I mean there is legit business going on in Indonesia, or you know any other where. Malaysia, there's a lot of industries. Like clothing, and wood, and you know there not, normal.
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Hailey Windham
17:23
Right right. Is there anything that your organization has done to change, to combat this, you know, traditional banking fraud that's still happening. So, right now, I think the only thing they did, so like I work for a state-owned bank in Indonesia. And Indonesia has very strict uh privacy laws.
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Hailey Windham
17:38
Yes. They can't just share with even with us. Like we're in New York branch. So, they don't even share with us. So, you have to be very careful how. But they have once we flag a few transactions, they freeze the accounts.
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Hailey Windham
17:52
Oh, that's nice. Okay.
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Alexandra Valencia
17:52
But then they went a couple days later and open a new account.
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Hailey Windham
17:55
Right, yeah, it's unfortunate sometimes. Um, what is one thing you want another fraud fighter watching this to take back to their institution?
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Alexandra Valencia
18:03
Well, I think um I think there's a lot of hype with like payments. And there's a lot of hype with uh um crypto and stable coins. And I feel like traditional banking is still just as vulnerable as everything else. So don't think that because you have all these hype that we forget that there's still banking and there's still a lot of stuff going on in banks.
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Hailey Windham
18:27
Yeah.
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Alexandra Valencia
18:28
Um and I do correspondent banking. I'm not even in retail banking. So imagine us, that we process like not maybe as many payments as other banks,
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Hailey Windham
18:38
Right.
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Alexandra Valencia
18:39
And we see things like that. I can't even imagine what a retail bank is watching right now.
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Hailey Windham
18:44
Yeah.
A woman with dark hair, wearing a black blazer and patterned blouse, smiles faintly with her arms crossed.
Alexandra Valencia
18:44
You know, and I think uh we just need to pay more attention now. It doesn't really have to do with like how much money it is. It could be a lot. It could be a little bit. It could it just you never know. You really have to keep that, you know, the the the your mind open that anything could happen. And if you go in there and you start looking, I bet you you can find something.
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Hailey Windham
19:06
So true. What's one word you would use to describe fraud for 2026?
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Alexandra Valencia
19:12
I think I would say like, I I, crazy.
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Hailey Windham
19:18
Yeah.
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Alexandra Valencia
19:19
Crazy. I think is this this whole thing is very crazy, and I think that we really need to pay attention, and I think people are not paying attention. They're not reading. They're not really looking. Um you know we just want to clock in 9 to5 and that's it. And if we really want to make a significant change in fraud, we really need to start paying attention because this is becoming too crazy.
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Hailey Windham
19:43
So true. So true. So we are obviously at the IAFCI um at the international conference here in Nashville. I would love to know what are your thoughts.
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Alexandra Valencia
19:50
I think this is amazing. The first time I went to one was last year, uh, Sunny, which was the Florida chapter. And that's where I heard Carlos and, you know, and Lauren. And learned about Kodex and all these things. And when I heard that investigation
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Hailey Windham
20:06
Yeah. and a year later, we're like not really moving that much forward. It's scary.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
20:12
Yeah. So scary.
A woman with dark hair, wearing a black blazer and patterned blouse, smiles faintly with her arms crossed.
Alexandra Valencia
20:13
This is, I think this is it helps you uh learn a lot.
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Hailey Windham
20:17
So true. So true. We love being a part of the IAFCI. So, thank you so much for joining me today. It really, uh I love having the different perspectives on. And and you bring such a a great energy here to this conference as well. So, thank you so much.
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Alexandra Valencia
20:28
You're welcome.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
20:28
We're going to do part of the the Nashville fraud set list uh for this um this session type. Um so, again, this is talking about what's hot, what's working, um and ultimately what's not. So, uh the hit is, you know, what is actually working in fraud prevention right now, do you think?
A smiling young man with light brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a navy suit jacket and white shirt.
Devin Sorin
20:44
So, what I've seen is a lot of institutions are taking layered tech stacks or fraud stacks and they're working. Um, there's no silver bullet in the fight against fraud. So, having layered stacks um is a huge plus. But the thing with the stacks is how they correlate with each other. Um, one signal being weaker. Um can be, you know, confirmed or denied by another signal, with another vendor or layer of that stack. And that just helps that, you know, bridge that visibility. And make sure people are more targeted and doing the best they can in in the fight. So, that's what I've seen.
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Hailey Windham
21:21
Yeah. No, I love that perspective. It it it brings a lot, um and obviously makes us truly think through um what more we can do, how we can better utilize our tools, things like that. Um so, uh the the overplayed song. You, what is the fraud industry talking about way too much without actually solving?
A smiling young man with light brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a navy suit jacket and white shirt.
Devin Sorin
21:40
So, you might have heard this a lot on the set list, but I wanted to say AI. Um, everyone's talking about AI right now. Um, everyone's layering it on top of machine learning. But what I've seen is that that just leads to um more babysitting if if I say, you know, you have to wash the stack. It it comes from the data you feed. Um, and you have to retrain it and the models will quietly lose effectiveness over time.
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Hailey Windham
22:05
Yep.
A smiling young man with light brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a navy suit jacket and white shirt.
Devin Sorin
22:06
And another thing is, you know, we're not the only people taking advantage of AI. The fraudsters are too. So they can, you know, send out massive campaigns using it. Anyone can become a bad actor. Um, get a fishing kit and just send it out. So it's really made our playing field a little bit more effective, but it doesn't compare to what the bad guys are doing. How they're using it.
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Hailey Windham
22:28
No, literally. And they don't have the the rules or regulations that we have. So we we struggle with that.
A smiling young man with light brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a navy suit jacket and white shirt.
Devin Sorin
22:33
Yeah. Indeed.
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Hailey Windham
22:34
Yeah. Um so my uh final question as a part of the set list is um you know what fraud issue isn't getting nearly enough attention do you think?
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Devin Sorin
22:44
I would say um the visibility beyond um the login page. So a lot of the tech stack I was talking about. All those controls land on the login page and inside the application. But we know and from the stories I've heard here, the scam start with a phone call, spoof page, um all that fun stuff they'll do. So that's where it's it starts. So, if you can start seeing outside of your environment and illuminating that blind spot from where the scam actually originates and you can be more targeted um knowing exactly, you know, who is interacting with the scam um and disrupting it before it actually hits that login page.
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Hailey Windham
23:23
Yeah, that that's actually an interesting perspective. I I love hearing that and definitely agree. I think that if we could uh you know not only just look at the the login page what's happening making sure that like it's the true know your customer as well what happens afterwards. What are they doing? Is it normal click pattern? Is it something that they normally do this time of the month, or or even this time of year? You know sometimes tax season will will change a person's behavior. Obviously. Um I can remember being younger that was probably the one time a year that I would log in 15 times a day trying to see if that deposited yet. Um
A smiling young man with light brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a navy suit jacket and white shirt.
Devin Sorin
23:57
I'm in that boat right. Yeah.
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Hailey Windham
24:00
Um, so yeah. There there are times. But if we could actually truly know the customer, understand the behavior of of the device and what they're doing, um, it it really would put us in a in a better better place. At least in the fight.
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Devin Sorin
24:14
Yeah, it's a proactive, you know, detection and disruption. You know, if you're able to stop it and see that, you know, a little old lady's on the phone. Or download a remote access tool. Um, feed those signals to, you know, the bank or credit union and let them take those proactive measures. You're going to save a lot of money and and some stories I've heard here. Someone's life. You know, it's a lot of money. Um, there's a lot of sad things that happen in account takeover fraud. So, if you can just get ahead of it. And have that starting line be outside the environment rather than the front door, you're going to help a lot of people out.
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Hailey Windham
24:49
So true. So true. So if fraud leaders um you know leave Nashville remembering one thing from from your set list, what what should it be?
A smiling young man with light brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a navy suit jacket and white shirt.
Devin Sorin
24:59
So, I had to think a little hard about this one. But I would say I think we should stop measuring success um by what we detect. And start measuring it by um what we can prevent before it ever happens. So, if that, you know, starting line is a little bit more forward, you're not just detecting it, but you're stopping it. So I think the tools that we have now are very valuable. But if we just shift that visibility a little bit more left and can really make a difference of stopping it before it happens. I think that's where the narrative needs to go. I've heard a lot of people talk about, you know, shifting visibility left and getting ahead of these threats. And I think that's that's where we need to move to, you know, have a bigger fight in this fight.
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Hailey Windham
25:42
Yeah. No, I completely agree. So obviously we're here at the IAFCI as well. So I must ask, what do you think about the conference?
A smiling young man with light brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a navy suit jacket and white shirt.
Devin Sorin
25:49
Oh, this conference is amazing. So I'd like to give a shout out to Heather in the Connecticut chapter. Um I went to that event. And I've been to three since, this I heard was the golden child. So I had to be here and it's been nothing but amazing. Um set up very well. I've heard a lot of good stories. I am young in my career so I've gotten to, you know, learn a lot about this space. And every time I come here I meet someone new. Um learn something new and I I make a lot of friends, too. So, it's great. I have nothing bad to say about it. It's been nothing short of amazing. It's been absolutely blown my expectations out of the water every single time.
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Hailey Windham
26:25
So, so true. Well, I can't thank you enough for joining me on Fraud Forward. Obviously, it's the last day of the chapter, or the last day of the conference. Um so, we are uh trying to, you know, there's a lot of hustle and bustle trying to make sure we get to those last sessions and whatnot. So, I definitely appreciate you taking the time to come and talk with me today.
A smiling young man with light brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a navy suit jacket and white shirt.
Devin Sorin
26:41
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it.
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Hailey Windham
26:43
So, um, again, we were you were just featured uh on The Monday Fraud Fix uh for your newsletter, Threats, um, Without Borders. I'd love if you would tell the audience a little bit more about it.
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Matt Dotts
26:54
Yeah, sure. So, it's uh it started uh during COVID. Um, I was in law enforcement and uh kind of losing my mind and I just started to write uh because we we couldn't do training. Uh you know, we were all locked in and there was no training and there was very little socializing. So, I just started to write a Substack newsletter about like my financial crime investigations and cyber that I was working on. And uh I just never stopped. I've retired from law enforcement. I now work cyber security for a bank and I still write the newsletter.
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Hailey Windham
27:28
Yeah.
A smiling man with glasses in a blue suit jacket and light blue shirt against a blue background.
Matt Dotts
27:29
So, and it just keeps growing and I'm so humbled by it. I it just blows my mind that people want to read something that I I write. I never take it for granted and it's just uh you know such a a humbling experience. So I I always say like uh it's free. There's no ads, no product placements. I never accept. People always were like, "Hey, will you do an ad for me?" I'm like, "Nope, I don't." It's it's free 100% and uh I still benefit most from it every week. So
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Hailey Windham
28:01
I love that so much. Um, again, you just celebrated 300. Matt >> Yeah. 300 straight weeks. 300 weeks.
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Hailey Windham
28:07
So crazy.
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Matt Dotts
28:08
Yeah.
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Hailey Windham
28:09
I I love that so much. The commitment itself, the consistency, it all it just shows, you know, your level of commitment to the industry obviously. And even if it is for selfish reasons in the beginning, right? Uh for a way to to train and to or uh you know collect that information and give it back to the industry. It's now just become something that from what I'm understanding is is one that's very well read. People come up to you know read it every every week. And now I'm a subscriber of it. So I'm I'm grateful for it.
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Matt Dotts
28:38
Yeah, it's well, thank you for subscribing. Uh it's
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Hailey Windham
28:41
I got my email. It says you're on the list.
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Matt Dotts
28:44
Yeah. Uh it came out this morning. Uh comes out every Tuesday morning. And uh it's it's funny when I come to conferences like this because I'll introduce myself and people read it but they've never met me. So I'll introduce myself and I'm like hey I'm Matt Dodson. They'll say are you you write the newsletter? And I'm like yeah. And then they kind of give me this look like, oh. Like they expected, like I'm like what like yeah this is me, right? You thought I
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
29:08
Like, hello.
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Matt Dotts
29:11
Yeah. Right. uh like my like because there was some persona behind it. And then it's, I always feel like I disappoint them when they actually see me, you know.
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Hailey Windham
29:18
Were you expecting Bon Jovi? That's not who you got.
A smiling man with glasses in a blue suit jacket and light blue shirt against a blue background.
Matt Dotts
29:21
Yeah. So, I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, that's I'm I'm the newsletter guy."
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Hailey Windham
29:24
Yeah. Well, well, I definitely appreciate it. Um uh unfortunately, I haven't read all three new 300 newsletters, but I I'm going to get started and catch back up. Um so lucky to have you here, too, at the IAFCI. Uh we kind of just walked randomly uh and saw each other. Um, and now you're on the podcast. I'd love to know what you think about the IAFCI. We're we're here at this conference. This is a great conference. It's in Nashville. I know it's bigger than what they originally anticipated. What are your thoughts?
A smiling man with glasses in a blue suit jacket and light blue shirt against a blue background.
Matt Dotts
29:51
Yeah. Uh, I've been a member for year, like Steve Lenderman and I go way back, right? We we started talking together or doing talks together on the circuit um, years ago. And uh the first time I ever spoke publicly was an IAFCI local event and it's propelled me. I I advertise in every way I go. I'm like it's propelled me so much. Uh you know I just spoke here this morning just an hour ago here. My room was packed. Uh I I never again take that for granted, and my ability to speak publicly, and to educate.
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Hailey Windham
30:33
Yeah.
A smiling man with glasses in a blue suit jacket and light blue shirt against a blue background.
Matt Dotts
30:34
All comes from the IAFCI. Like I I started doing uh at the at the um chapter level and it's just gone from there. And I'm constantly trying to get like young people like, "Hey, get a talk together."
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Hailey Windham
30:48
Yeah.
A smiling man with glasses in a blue suit jacket and light blue shirt against a blue background.
Matt Dotts
30:49
Go do a talk at your local chapter. Join your local chapter and it'll just take you so far. And uh yeah, so I'm I'm a big uh proponent of of the organization. I haven't always agreed with the organization. Uh those who read my newsletter know that sometimes I've been critical of the organization. Uh and leadership, but the organization itself and what it does for financial crime investigators uh is is unparalleled.
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Hailey Windham
31:19
I I completely agree. When I was first introduced to the IAFCI, I was like, "Wait a minute. I can get in a room with law enforcement?" I I can actually talk to the investigators that are in my local area and I can say, "Hey, I've got some cases and I just didn't know who I could call." And then from those uh came more collaborative um investigations. Where truly we were working together. And then it was, hey, you know, we're not quite meeting that dollar threshold. Do you know any other FIs that we could bring in that maybe are experiencing the same thing? And from there we were able to build these really great cases. Um and it all started at the IAFCI where I was able to see true collaboration um you know in effect.
A smiling man with glasses in a blue suit jacket and light blue shirt against a blue background.
Matt Dotts
31:58
Yeah, the networking is so important. Like that's the best thing and I I always say like if you don't care about anything else, just come and meet people and talk to people. So that you have a resource to call, that you have somebody. Like that's how you get stuff done.
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Hailey Windham
32:12
Yeah.
A smiling man with glasses in a blue suit jacket and light blue shirt against a blue background.
Matt Dotts
32:13
Like not like calling, you know, take a bank. Like you don't call the local branch and say, "Hey, like can I talk to." No, you you need, you'll you'll you'll go through uh you know, phone menu nightmares to try to figure that out. Like you need to have a contact ahead of time. And and this is where you build it.
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Hailey Windham
32:33
So true. So true. Well, I can't thank you enough for for joining me uh today on the podcast. I know it was a a quick grab, but I really appreciate it. And uh we'll encourage everyone to subscribe to your newsletter. Um again, it was just featured on Monday Fraud Fix, but Matt, this was such a pleasure.
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Matt Dotts
32:48
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
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Hailey Windham
32:50
Of course.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
32:51
So, we are obviously here in Nashville at the IAFCI. Is there uh, what do you think of the conference so far?
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David Maimon
32:57
I think it's a great event. I mean, bringing together so many practitioners.
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Hailey Windham
33:01
Yeah.
Portrait of a man with grey hair and light stubble, wearing a suit jacket and white shirt, against a reddish textured wall.
David Maimon
33:01
To learn about fraud, understand uh you know recent trends, what we are seeing there, talking about what they are seeing out there. Uh I think I think it's extremely valuable for our community to continue and continue and continue to do these kind of meetings and uh fight the good fight.
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Hailey Windham
33:17
Yeah. Yeah. So is there um anything in particular that you uh really like about the IAFCI in comparison to other associations?
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David Maimon
33:24
I think it's the fact that it's so informable and that everyone is so uh enriched, so to speak. I mean, you see everyone down the hall and
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Hailey Windham
33:33
I mean, you can walk right up to David and give him a hug. Davidn33:36 Well, that's you.
A blonde woman in a black blazer smiles slightly against a purple background.
Hailey Windham
33:37
Okay, good. But now I feel special.
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David Maimon
33:39
Uh, but yeah, I mean, the fact that everyone everyone is around here, I mean, you get to have these informal conversations on the hallway and take people to drinks, right? I mean uh uh this this city is amazing as itself uh because you know so many interesting venues you can go and party in.
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Hailey Windham
33:54
Yeah.
Portrait of a man with grey hair and light stubble, wearing a suit jacket and white shirt, against a reddish textured wall.
David Maimon
33:55
Um and you know as fraud fighters we like to party. So
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Hailey Windham
33:58
Yeah look we have to get our kick somehow. You know we we struggle all year long in you know our dark little corners of fraud fighting. And so when we get a couple of minutes to cut loose we we just got to. Yeah. We got to you know. If we don't we'll just bust.
Portrait of a man with grey hair and light stubble, wearing a suit jacket and white shirt, against a reddish textured wall.
David Maimon
34:15
That's right. That's right.
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Hailey Windham
34:16
Uh, so I think I had enough fun for um everyone uh last night. And you know today today's a new day but that's all all good. Um I I'd love to know more um you know I've been talking about fraud trends and uh things with everybody that's come on. Is there any particular trend that you're seeing uh rise in 2026 when it comes to fraud?
Portrait of a man with grey hair and light stubble, wearing a suit jacket and white shirt, against a reddish textured wall.
David Maimon
34:35
It's a great question. Yeah, there are a couple of really interesting trends we're seeing developing. Uh the first one I actually posted on this uh on LinkedIn a couple of minutes ago before I came here. Business email compromise. Yeah. Uh it's just going insane, right? I mean, we we all knew business email compromise uh is is is going on, right, for quite a while. But uh I can I just looked at finCEN data for the last uh 6 months. Um and we're seeing a dramatic increase in the volume of business uh cyber events against financial institutions, customers. Which you know, business email compromises are part of it, right? Uh in July of 2026, finCEN reported the highest number of those events in the history of of finCEN.
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Hailey Windham
35:17
Oh my gosh.
Portrait of a man with grey hair and light stubble, wearing a suit jacket and white shirt, against a reddish textured wall.
David Maimon
35:18
So, so this is definitely something to uh take a look at. I think that one of the reason why we're seeing this dramatic increase is the uh availability of markets out there, online markets, which supports the sales of tools which allow you access to um inboxes, business inboxes. Uh and also the fact that those uh online markets allow you access to some of those inboxes. So, you know, you can buy the tools, but you can also buy the access to those companies inboxes. And then, you know, it's it's mind boggling to see what we're seeing on those markets. You actually see the inboxes, you see how methodic this is. I mean, you see the fraudsters going through the inbox, learning like what's going on, trying to figure out how to put together exactly the invoices. And then send it to uh the the victim. but then funnel the money to bank accounts that the criminals created. That's just mind boggling to say that. So that's that's one of the emerging trends. I think abandoned identities.
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Hailey Windham
36:12
Mhm.
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David Maimon
36:13
Um you know the last 6 months or so I've been talking a lot about abandoned identities. Abandoned identities that the way I sort of define them are identities of individuals who do not necessarily monitor the the health status of their identities. So you can think about babies, you can think about deceased individuals, you can think about former legal immigrants here in the United States. Folks who do not really pay attention to uh uh their their credit score uh the the financial status of their uh identity. Uh we see a dramatic shift to folks using like criminals using those identities to try and on board with banks, create businesses, take loans um all over the country. So uh these are the two major trends that I think folks should definitely pay attention to. This is you know this is the most recent one but account takeover is is is really high right now. Again uh we we're seeing a slight decrease in finCEN but a a lot going on around account takeover and uh credit and debit card fraud. These are these are the major fraud that turns. I know it's a long it's a long answer.
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Hailey Windham
37:15
No I I appreciate the long answer. It it gives us something to think about. Definitely me. Um, you know, I think about the the content and obviously what is important to fraud fighters. So, being able to hear the different perspectives has been, you know, a treasure trove for me. Um, and also will be for the audience because we'll be able to, you know, bring back these insights. So, I appreciate your long form answer. Anytime David talks, I'm just going to swoon and listen anyway. Um, okay. Uh, I'll I'll be quick. Last question. Um, if you had one word to describe fraud in 2026, what would it be?
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David Maimon
37:47
Um you know to describe fraud in 2026. Uh well fraudsters are definitely using AI and Gen AI more and more.
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Hailey Windham
37:57
Yeah.
Portrait of a man with grey hair and light stubble, wearing a suit jacket and white shirt, against a reddish textured wall.
David Maimon
37:57
So um maybe we can describe it as um agentic AI fuel fraud. I don't know.
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Hailey Windham
38:05
Yeah. Hey. Yeah. It it it's crazy. Um it the fraudsters are uh using the same tools but they don't have the same rules.
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David Maimon
38:12
No. I mean it's it's mind-blowing to see the automation at this point. Um the tools, how sophisticated folks became in the context of bypassing a lot of the KYC
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Hailey Windham
38:22
Right
Portrait of a man with grey hair and light stubble, wearing a suit jacket and white shirt, against a reddish textured wall.
David Maimon
38:23
uh tools out there um and how they continue to work this ecosystem with some of the automatic tool. Like the agentic models that, so uh yeah. Unfortunately more and more to come from the fraudster side.
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Hailey Windham
38:36
Unfortunately. but I mean that means we'll get to see each other more.
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David Maimon
38:38
Yeah, definitely.
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Hailey Windham
38:40
More more conferences and more content. So, David, again, thank you so much for joining me on Fraud Forward and for being here live in Nashville.
Portrait of a man with grey hair and light stubble, wearing a suit jacket and white shirt, against a reddish textured wall.
David Maimon
38:46
Thank you so much for having me.
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Hailey Windham
38:48
I attended your session this morning. It was remarkable as always. I think the probably the um most exciting thing that I saw was really how the agents were kind of responding and making it where the investigations were being done that you don't have to worry at night, right? You don't have to worry about calling in your fraud team or calling in your customers' fraud team. I'd love it if you could expand a little bit on that and what we're seeing.
soups
Soups Ranjan
39:11
Yeah, 100%. So, uh what we're observing is that with AI there's a massive uh scale up in the uh the magnitude of attacks, right? So, previously if you wanted to buy you know stolen credit cards or stolen identities on a dark market you you were doing it manually. And now fraudsters are using AI to do it. So when they use AI to do it, they have access to like you know millions of stolen identities. And then they go and next apply it at fintechs, right? Or banks to do online account opening.
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Hailey Windham
39:47
Yeah.
soups
Soups Ranjan
39:48
And it's not it's not like you know you you would see like hundreds of uh stolen or fake or synthetic identities per day. Now we we saw one uh very large financial institution client of ours, which saw a massive 250,000 account sign up in the matter of a couple of days.
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Hailey Windham
40:09
Wow.
soups
Soups Ranjan
40:10
So to deal with such massively scaled up AI generated attacks, you cannot rely on your traditional tools, you also need AI generative, generative AI based tools which help you fight back, right? And that is what we we we built at Sardine. So we have a variety of AI agents uh which specialize in uh very specific uh use cases. But then you chain them together.
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Hailey Windham
40:36
Right.
soups
Soups Ranjan
40:36
Right. So for example, we have an anomaly detection agent which looks at you know new anomalies coming up. And then it hands it over to a data analyst agent which writes SQL queries, and on its own autonomously one SQL query after the other to figure out what's happening what's the attack pattern what's the typology. And then hands it over to rule assistant agent which comes back and suggests a new rule you should deploy. Um and then you know uh you could go through all of this like anomaly, agent, to data analyst agent, into a rule recommend agent, and outspits a new rule which you could actually deploy into shadow mode.
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Hailey Windham
41:12
Yeah. Yeah.
soups
Soups Ranjan
41:12
And then a human actually decides whether to push it into production. And then our whole thesis is we don't want when these massively scalable attacks happen, we don't want to wake up our fraud teams. Either Sardine fraud teams or customers fraud teams. You should be able to, you know, handle all of it end to end autonomously. But
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Hailey Windham
41:29
I think that is such an incredible approach. One of the things that um I love about Sardine is the the one promise that was made to be when I came on and it was do you want to help at scale? And that's what I'm seeing continuously. It's that not only, you know, are we pushing out this content to try to help, which, you know, is is my bread and butter, what I'm on. But how you're able to, with our technology, show that we can scale your fraud program. So that you can add on more products that maybe you didn't consider before. Uh, you know, some of the partnerships that we have that allow for community banks to even be able to now allow for digital onboarding that they couldn't have even considered before. But now with the partnership of Sardine, they they are able to do that without increasing fraud numbers. And I I think it's just incredible.
soups
Soups Ranjan
42:11
Mhm. Yeah. No, absolutely. Um and uh one of the most important things to keep in mind when uh brick and mortar banks, they move from, you know, uh in-person account opening to like digital account opening is fraud, right? Because uh um when it's a brick and mortar bank, you're seeing the person face to face. Of course, they there are lots of tricks via which they can still fool you, right? they can bring a stolen um they can bring a nice looking driver license which is still fake. You have all of that fraud still there. But when it's digital account opening then uh you know it's far easier for them to get away with. However it's solutions like Sardine provides, you provide ID verification like driver license, ID card, passport, plus a video selfie. Plus we detect deep fakes as well to see if any of those deep fakes are you know essentially injection attacks. Are you injecting a deep fake into the webcam?
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Hailey Windham
43:07
Yeah, it it's so incredible to see. I I I've told my friends every day at Sardine, I learn something new. We've got the smartest innovating innovating team on on the planet, I believe. Um so, I'd love to ask, you know, one final question before we get going. I know some classes are about to let out. Um if there's any advice you would give to any fraud fighter or investigator listening now, uh in order to, you know, do their job more effectively, what what would you suggest?
soups
Soups Ranjan
43:32
Yeah. Um couple of uh pieces of advice, right? So fraud is a constantly evolving world. So uh stay in touch with the colleagues, learn from each other, um build a community, become a part of a community. Uh for example, at Sardine, we organizing various uh events under the name of SardineCon. We bringing like these SardineCon themed dinners. The idea is really to just build a community. You know, we're not going to pitch you anything about Sardine uh at these dinners. It's really all about bringing fraud fighters in different cities in the US together.
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Hailey Windham
44:06
Yes.
soups
Soups Ranjan
44:06
So, uh come subscribe to our marketing channels to get an invite to one of those dinners. And then I would say then the second thing is uh in the world of fraud. The most important thing is um every fraudster leaves a tell.
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Hailey Windham
44:22
Yes.
soups
Soups Ranjan
44:23
Uh they always slip up. They always make some tiny mistakes somewhere even if they are the most sophisticated fraudster. So the second piece of advice I have is if you can, then always uh store all of the data that you can. And you know with one day when there's a fraud attack that happens you can go back and find it.
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Hailey Windham
44:41
Yeah.
soups
Soups Ranjan
44:41
Right. And by that I mean like store all of the telemetry, right? With tools like Sardine we give you all the telemetry for like um phone or your orientation of the phone or like typing speed, typing cadence, IP address, related data, or device fingerprint related data, store all of it. And then later when a fraud happens you can come back and find what was that tell.
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Hailey Windham
45:04
Yes. Yes. Well thank you so much for joining me. This was our quick little 5 minute interview, but really appreciate your time today. And uh thanks for joining uh us at the IAFCI National Conference.
soups
Soups Ranjan
45:15
Absolutely. It's a real pleasure to be on the show, Hailey. Thank you.
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Hailey Windham
45:18
Okay. Great. Thank you.
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Hailey Windham
45:25
Thanks for listening to Fraud Forward. Remember, every conversation, every connection, and every insight moves our industry one step closer to stronger fraud defenses. If today's episode sparked an idea, share it with your team or tag me on LinkedIn. I love hearing how you're moving fraud forward in your own organization. Until next time, stay curious, stay resilient, keep moving fraud forward.