THE INTERNET IN 2024: INDUSTRIALISED INVESTMENT SCAMS FUELLED BY AI
For everyday internet users the world is becoming a more dangerous place.
A global industry of cyber-villians are systematically targeting victims on their favourite digital platforms and luring them into a labyrinth of malicious financial falsehoods, outrageous claims and social engineering tactics.
Far too often those victims lose their life savings and their hopes and dreams for the future in one fell swoop.
Such digitally-enabled scams are known in the finance industry as Authorised Push Payment (APP) frauds, and were responsible for around £500M of losses in the UK alone in 2022, with related scams costing much more: £7.5 billion.
The explosive growth of generative AI technology since then allows even more credible and bespoke lures. We’re in for a long and difficult battle against a well established foe.
The world needs some heroes...
THE 4 phases of an investment scam
1. outreach
Scammer casts the net wide with large scale advertising or unsolicited messages
2. Introduction
Scammer differentiates genuine ‘marks’ from non-target personas by starting a dialogue on a messaging app.
3. Transaction
Scammer builds trust by simulating small monetary wins for the victim and allowing small withdrawals
4. Maximisation
Scammer continues ‘financial grooming’ and ensures all of the victims funds are deposited before disappearing with the victim’s money.
aviel products
scout
for banks and crypto exchanges
A real-time API feed of mule accounts being used to take scam payments which banks can action to reduce financial losses to APP fraud.
Aviel Scout
samaritan
for government
An AI-powered emergency education service to deter users from losing their funds which delivers government’s mandate to reduce harms of APP fraud.
Aviel samaritan
Media periscope
for regulators
A software toolset that helps regulators to turn the avalanche of public social media data into policy-guiding enforcement insight.
Aviel samaritan
HEROES, ASSEMBLE! THE AVIEL Team
Joe
CEO & FOUNDER
Joe is a software engineer who has spent the last decade hunting botnets. That journey started when he joined a tiny startup later acquired by Google. While at Google, Joe contributed to the detection and takedown of the largest ad fraud botnet ever discovered.
Dr Anton
Crypto & Business Lead
Anton is a digital tech entrepreneur with research interests in the crypto assets market and countering disinformation. Anton regularly lectures students at the University of Cambridge on digital currencies
John
Lead Investigator
With extensive experience crafting top-tier ad campaigns for global brands, John understands deeply what makes people tick. He applies this expertise when investigating scammers and talking to victims to deter them from moving money to scam operations.
We examine recent news which paints a bleak picture of the environment in south-east Asia. Powerful economic and sociopolitical factors point to a long struggle.
In our conversation LLaMa calls into question the effectiveness of Meta’s AI technology before calling for regulators and lawmakers to take action against Meta.
Meta’s LLaMa AI LLaMbasts Meta's SCAM failureS
Scams: Meta wants you to look elsewhere
