UN office on drugs and crime exposes how criminals are using AI to drive fraud

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has shed light on the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) by criminal organizations to commit fraud, warning that technology is making such scams easier to scale and harder to detect. This warning arrives ahead of the UNODC's first Global Fraud Summit, where countries and law enforcement agencies aim to strengthen measures to combat the growing fraud threat.

Fraud is defined as the deliberate deception of individuals or organizations to obtain money or other valuables, ranging from individual scammers to large, transnational networks. INTERPOL data reveals that 85% of Red Notices issued between 2022 and 2023 were related to financial fraud, with criminals stealing billions of dollars annually through various deceptive schemes.

AI technology has become central to modern organized fraud, enabling criminals to create deepfake videos, images, and audio, as well as personalized chatbot conversations. In Southeast Asia, AI-powered multilingual chatbots are being used by scam rings to draft, translate, and tailor conversations with multiple victims simultaneously.

Criminals are also creating fake digital identities using photographs, social media content, identification documents, and fabricated online histories to carry out romance, investment, cryptocurrency, and Ponzi schemes. Other forms of organized fraud include employment scams, identity theft, consumer fraud, and impersonation of trusted entities.

Some criminal groups are solely focused on fraud, while others involved in drug and human trafficking have expanded into fraud due to the lucrative nature of the activity. The "cybercrime as a service" model allows groups to hire experts in phishing, malware, and money laundering, while moving funds through money mules, shell companies, and real estate.

Some fraud operations are also linked to human trafficking, where victims are coerced into participating in fraudulent activities. UNODC is working with governments and partners to implement legislation, public-private partnerships, training, and intelligence-sharing initiatives to prevent organized fraud, supported by the UN Conventions against Transnational Organized Crime and Cybercrime.

In Costa Rica, UNODC-trained law enforcement utilized cryptocurrency tracing techniques to track bitcoin transactions linked to a major money laundering and fraud operation, leading to arrests and the seizure of assets worth millions of dollars.