https://dialogo-americas.com/articles/ai-boosts-cybercrime-interpol-warns/

The use of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), large language models, and cryptocurrencies are allowing Latin American criminal organizations such as the Red Command, the First Capital Command, and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), to better delve into financial fraud, a March INTERPOL report indicated.

“Machine learning tools can be used to analyze large volumes of financial transaction data and detect patterns that might go unnoticed by traditional analysis methods,” Raúl Álvarez, a Cybersecurity professor at the Anáhuac University of Mexico told Diálogo on May 10. “This can include identifying suspicious movements of hidden currency through legitimate transactions, facilitating large-scale money laundering.”

INTERPOL identified several trends in financial fraud, including investment fraud, advance payment fraud, romance fraud, and business email breaches.

“Changes in technology and the rapid increase in the scale and volume of organized crime has driven the creation of a range of new ways to defraud innocent people, business, and even governments,” INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock said in a statement. “With the development of AI and cryptocurrencies, the situation is only going to get worse without urgent action.”

The U.S. Treasury Department imposed economic sanctions on eight Mexican companies for defrauding U.S. timeshare homeowners to benefit the CJNG, Mexican newspaper El Financiero reported.

“Mexico’s CJNG is particularly innovative in its adoption of technologies. There is evidence that they use AI to cover up their illicit financial operations,” Álvarez said. “Money laundering, a critical need for the financial viability of any criminal group, could be facilitated by algorithms that design transaction patterns less detectable by fraud prevention systems.”

The CJNG obtained $288 million in the last five years through a fraud scheme, Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre reported on April 18, based on data from the FBI.

Faced with these new forms of crime, the United States is supporting countries in the region to strengthen their capabilities to thwart them.

The Center for Cybercrime Investigation and Cybersecurity Latin America (CIC Latam), thanks to a U.S. grant, has been investigating online criminal activities and providing workshops to combat them.

In these workshops, they identify how cybercriminals improve their capabilities in encrypting communications, using cryptocurrencies and increasingly sophisticated malware.

“These Latin organized crime groups develop their own mobile applications, to deploy money laundering mechanisms such as high-interest micro-credits, which in some Latin American countries is known as ‘gota a gota’ [drop by drop a term used for loansharking],” Colombian Police Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Mike Toro, CIC’s director of Advanced Technologies for Latin America, told Diálogo. “The functionalities of AI allow them to replicate these applications, assign them a name adapted to the country where they have a criminal presence and thus save development costs.”

In Latin America, some of the most common frauds INTERPOL identified are identity theft, technical support, advance payment, and deception through telecommunications, Forbes Mexico magazine reported. INTERPOL highlighted the use of migrants as targets of human trafficking for prostitution and forced illegal trade as a growing incident.

In 2023, INTERPOL’s Operation Turquoise V revealed that hundreds of victims were lured from messaging apps and social networking platforms to leave their places of origin, Mexican daily El Economista reported. People were then intimidated into committing investment frauds and a type of scam known as pig-butchering, which combines romance scam with crypto investment.

“We must anticipate the combinations of crime with the new information technologies that are on the horizon. For this, scientific research, specialized training, and multi-layered criminal investigation capabilities are essential,” Toro said. “Specialized units are required in trend analysis, just like it’s done with scientific analytics; developing or adapting training programs based on those trends and developing new online criminalistic techniques, to counteract the analyzed phenomena.”

For all the above, INTERPOL recommends creating public-private partnerships, to track and recover funds lost to financial fraud. “Closing information gaps is crucial to effectively address the global criminal escalation,” Spanish daily El País reported.

“This requires a combination of advanced training, technological updating, international cooperation, and a robust and shared legal framework,” Álvarez said. “With these elements, the region will be better equipped to protect its citizens from the complex threats posed by financial fraud in the digital age.”