ICYMI: Two Stages, One Fraud Fight

Scammers don't respect borders—or industry lines. This week, the fight against them stretched from Arlington to Bangkok.

In Arlington, investigators, compliance experts, and law enforcement gathered at ABA's AML and Fraud Conference. In Bangkok, the IMF, World Bank, and Bank of Thailand launched the Bangkok Blueprint, a framework for tackling cyber-enabled fraud through a whole-of-ecosystem approach.

Different audiences, same lesson: stopping modern scams requires banks, technology platforms, telecom companies, law enforcement, and governments to work together.

Fraud tactics are evolving fast

About 1 in every 5 Americans has lost money to an online scam or attack. A House Financial Services Committee report, citing TRM Labs, found that AI-enabled scam activity rose 500% over the last year.

That pace of change was a focus in Arlington, where speakers urged banks and law enforcement to work hand in hand to get ahead of increasingly sophisticated criminal networks, rather than chasing them after the money is gone.

As Mattie Duppler, spokesperson for The Ledger Project, says, "Scammers go wherever the rules are weakest. Closing those gaps, and adapting as fast as criminals do, is how we protect consumers."

Many scams start before money reaches a bank

By the time a fraudulent payment reaches the financial system, the scam may already have been unfolding for days. As the House Financial Services Committee documented, criminals reach victims through social media, dating apps, online marketplaces, texts, robocalls, and email.

That cross-border, cross-sector challenge is at the heart of the Bangkok Blueprint. At its launch, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey warned that rising fraud threatens something bigger than any single institution:

• "If we don't have trust in money, we don't operate as a society."

Prevention is a shared responsibility

Trust in the financial system depends on keeping scammers out of its weakest links. As Bailey put it, "There is responsibility all around... everybody is then a part of addressing the problem."

That makes prevention a shared, practical job, including:

• Banks identifying and stopping suspicious payments
• Technology platforms removing fraudulent accounts and content
• Telecom providers blocking spoofed calls and scam messages
• Government and law enforcement disrupting criminal networks
• Consumers recognizing warning signs and reporting scams

Two stages, one takeaway: criminals exploit the gaps between institutions. Protecting consumers means closing those gaps together. The Ledger Project will be watching how policymakers here at home put that lesson into practice.

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