---
title: IAFCI, part 2: Fraud Fighter Sound Check on B2B Fraud
source_page: https://www.sardine.ai/media/fraud-forward/episodes/b2b-fraud
canonical: https://www.sardine.ai/media/fraud-forward/episodes/b2b-fraud
format: text/markdown
date: 2026-09-16T04:01:00.000Z
description: B2B fraud doesn’t always get the attention consumer fraud does. Covering topics from synthetic business entities to AI fraud tools live from IAFCI Nashville…
---

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# IAFCI, part 2: Fraud Fighter Sound Check on B2B Fraud

**Published:** 2026-09-16T04:01:00.000Z

B2B fraud doesn’t always get the attention consumer fraud does. Covering topics from synthetic business entities to AI fraud tools live from IAFCI Nashville…

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!
This episode is another one that is unplugged, on the road, and recorded live at IAFCI International in Nashville. I am spending more time talking with the people who fight fraud from every angle. This time we talked about consumer fraud, identity theft, romance scams, account takeover on someone’s personal banking app, and the stuff that leads to the nightly news. But businesses get defrauded too, and when they do, it doesn’t just hit a balance sheet. It hits jobs, it hits communities, yet it barely hits the headlines.
These conversations will hit on a lot, and we will cover one topic that maybe doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves. B2B fraud. From business identity verification, synthetic business entities, the regulatory gaps opening up around beneficial ownership, and where AI is genuinely helping instead of just adding to the noise.
Sit down, and let’s get into it with the fraud fighters sounding off on B2B fraud, synthetic entities, and everything AI is changing about the fight ahead.
What you'll hear in this episode:
Why B2B fraud gets a fraction of the attention consumer fraud does, even though the downstream impact on employees and communities can be just as severe.
How synthetic business entities and beneficial ownership fraud are becoming easier to pull off, and why recent FinCEN ownership rule changes are widening that gap.
A real example of business email compromise reaching its highest recorded volume in FinCEN's history, and how compromised business inbox markets let criminals study a company's own email patterns before striking.
What abandoned identity fraud actually means, criminals exploiting the identities of babies, deceased individuals, and people who simply don't monitor their own credit.
Why traditional banking fraud vulnerabilities, like slow-moving cross-border wire fraud, are getting overlooked while everyone's attention shifts to AI and crypto.
A practical framework for proactive fraud detection, including fraud detection beyond login and why the real fight starts before someone ever reaches your app.
How layered fraud detection stacks and agentic AI fraud tools are being used to catch AI-scaled attacks, including one financial institution that saw 250,000 fraudulent account signups in a matter of days.
Why IAFCI conference collaboration, a shared conversation, a follow-up call, a number saved after one good conversation, is still one of the most effective fraud-fighting tools out there.
You should listen to this episode if you:
Work in business banking, commercial lending, or B2B fraud detection and want to hear this category taken seriously.
Are responsible for business identity verification and want to understand how beneficial ownership fraud is shifting under new FinCEN rules.
Have been affected by business email compromise or want to understand how compromised business inbox markets actually operate.
Are building or evaluating layered fraud detection stacks and want real examples of agentic AI fraud tools in production.
Believe fraud detection beyond login matters as much as anything happening inside your app.
Want a genuine feel for why IAFCI conference collaboration keeps coming up as fraud fighters' biggest advantage.
### Episode notes
Why B2B fraud deserves the same attention as consumer fraud
We've spent decades building public awareness around consumer fraud, and rightly so. But businesses are who employ people. When B2B fraud hits a company's bottom line, it eventually hits someone's paycheck too. Several conversations at this conference kept circling back to the same frustration. Fraud fighters working the B2B side finally have a real framework for what business fraud looks like. And it starts with investigating the entire network connected to a business, not just the business itself.
Synthetic business entities and the beneficial ownership gap
That same conversation dug into why synthetic business entities are becoming easier to create and harder to catch. A recent FinCEN ownership rule change means less ownership data is being retained. That raises a real question about who's now responsible for verifying it. Add limited resources for business identity verification and an explosion of AI tools that make synthetic identities cheap to produce, and you get a genuine widening of the beneficial ownership fraud gap.
Business email compromise hits a record high
One of the sharpest data points from the whole conference came out of a conversation on this exact topic. July 2026 saw the highest volume of business email compromise events in FinCEN's recorded history. What stood out most to me was learning about compromised business inbox markets. These are online marketplaces where criminals don't just buy phishing tools. They buy direct access to real business inboxes. From there, they study the communication patterns inside before sending a fraudulent invoice that looks exactly right.
Abandoned identity fraud, a term worth knowing
I picked up a phrase at this conference I hadn't heard before, abandoned identity fraud. It refers to identities belonging to people who aren't actively monitoring their own financial health. Think babies, deceased individuals, and former immigrants who may not track their credit closely. Criminals are increasingly using these dormant identities to open accounts, form businesses, and take out loans undetected.
Traditional banking fraud hasn't gone anywhere
Amid all the AI talk at this conference, one conversation offered a reminder that felt almost countercultural. Traditional money rails, like standard wire transfers, remain some of the most vulnerable payment methods today. That's precisely because so much industry attention has shifted toward newer payment technologies instead. One example that stuck with me was watching straightforward wire transfers move from the US into Southeast Asia, then disperse rapidly across dozens of accounts. It's a pattern that's easy to miss if nobody's actively looking for it anymore.
Shifting fraud detection upstream of the login page
Another theme that came up again and again was that most fraud tooling still concentrates on the login page and everything after it. But the scam itself often starts well before that. A phone call. A spoofed page. A social engineering attempt happening entirely outside the app. The argument I kept hearing was simple. Fraud detection beyond login lets you disrupt an attack before it ever reaches your front door.
Agentic AI fraud tools built to keep pace with AI-scaled attacks
The most detailed technical breakdown I heard all conference described how criminals are now using AI to scale attacks that used to require manual effort. One financial institution saw 250,000 fraudulent account signups in a matter of days because of it. The answer to that kind of scale is a layered fraud detection stack built from chained AI agents. One agent detects anomalies. Another investigates the pattern. A third recommends a new rule. A human still makes the final call before anything goes live.
Why IAFCI conference collaboration keeps coming up
Across nearly every conversation in this episode, one thread kept resurfacing without me even asking for it. The relationships built at conferences like this one are what actually get cases solved, not just the tools. Sometimes it's a fraud investigator finally having someone to call. Sometimes it's two institutions realizing they're seeing the exact same attack pattern. Either way, IAFCI conference collaboration keeps showing up as the thing fraud fighters credit most.
### Key takeaways
B2B fraud detection remains significantly under-resourced compared to consumer fraud, even though the business impact is just as severe.
Beneficial ownership fraud is widening as FinCEN ownership rule changes reduce the data available to verify who actually controls a business.
Business email compromise hit its highest recorded volume in FinCEN's history in July 2026, driven partly by compromised business inbox markets selling direct access to real inboxes.
Abandoned identity fraud targets people who don't actively monitor their own credit, including babies, deceased individuals, and former immigrants.
Traditional banking fraud vulnerabilities, especially in cross-border wire fraud, are getting less scrutiny as institutional attention shifts toward AI and crypto.
Proactive fraud detection means catching a scam before it reaches your login page, not just monitoring activity after someone's inside your app.
Layered fraud detection stacks combining multiple signals and vendors consistently outperform any single tool working alone.
Agentic AI fraud tools are now essential for matching the scale of AI-driven attacks, with one institution recording 250,000 fraudulent signups in a matter of days.
IAFCI conference collaboration, the relationships built through one good conversation, remains one of the most effective and consistently cited fraud-fighting tools in the industry.
### Final takeaway
If there's one thing these sit-down conversations at IAFCI made clear, it's that B2B fraud has been hiding in plain sight while the industry's attention chases the next AI headline. The same regulatory gaps, dormant identities, and old-fashioned wire transfers that have always been vulnerable are still vulnerable, they're just quieter than a viral deepfake story. The fraud fighters actually closing these gaps aren't relying on a single tool or a single data point. They're layering signals, pushing detection earlier in the funnel, and, more than anything else, picking up the phone to call someone they met exactly like this, in a conversation that started at a conference built for precisely that purpose.
Episode resources & links
Connect with Soups Ranjan | LinkedIn
CEO & Co-Founder at Sardine
Andrew La Marca | LinkedIn
VP & Head of Fraud and Data at Dun & Bradstreet
ACFE LV Chapter President
Connect with Alexandra Valencia | LinkedIn
Founder & The Compliance Detective at Crypto Made for Me
Global Financial Crime Expert
Former DEA Intelligence Analyst
Connect with Devin Sorin | LinkedIn
Business Development Representative at Memcyco
Connect with Matt Dotts | LinkedIn
AVP & Information Security Awareness Officer at Mid Penn Bank
Former Cyber and Financial Crime Detective
Former Task Force Officer
Author of Threats Without Borders
Connect with David Maimon | LinkedIn
Head of Fraud Insights at SentiLink
Director, Evidence Based Cybersecurity Research Group
Connect with Keven Hendricks | LinkedIn
Founder at Ubivis Project
Certified Cryptocurrency Investigator
Certified Digital Asset Professional
CSIAC Subject Matter Expert
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