Surge in scams as fraudsters use AI to target people
On average, nearly eight cases of fraud in which money is stolen are reported in the UK every minute.
Coverage by Political Leaning
See how different sides of the spectrum reported this story
Notable Quotes
"The impact goes beyond financial loss; it can cause huge emotional harm, leaving victims burdened by guilt and shame, which is why we must tackle the problem at its source to protect consumers."
— Paul Davis , Executive
"[Fraudsters] are professional and they are making massive volumes of money."
— Kirsty Guest , Other
"One click and you can lose your life savings."
— Ruth Ray , Executive
"the bureau, in coordination with Google and Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs, seized several domains used by the cybercriminals"
— FBI spokesperson , Other
"If you are sitting in a café or restaurant, people’s behavior typically is fairly similar. But you can spot someone that looks a bit nervous or twitchy. It’s the same in banking. Historically, bank tellers were looking for anomalous behavior."
— James Mirfin , Executive
Key People
A representative from the FBI who commented on the cybercrime operation.
Senior Vice President and Global Head of Risk and Security Intelligence Solutions at Visa.
A victim who encountered multiple fraudsters on a dating site.
A florist from North Yorkshire who was a victim of a scam.
Head of economic crime at Barclays.
Managing director of economic crime at UK Finance.
Tags
All Coverage
On average, nearly eight cases of fraud in which money is stolen are reported in the UK every minute.
Google has filed a lawsuit against a Chinese cybercrime network, Outsider Enterprise, alleging the group used AI to send scam text messages impersonating Google and other brands to steal passwords and credit card numbers, affecting hundreds of thousands of victims.
Fraudsters are using deepfakes, cloned voices, fake employment records, and AI-generated financial behavior to create synthetic borrowers that can pass onboarding and underwriting before vanishing after loans are funded.
Financial fraud is rising, fueled by AI-enhanced sophisticated scams and new payment methods, with top scams involving investments, business imposters, government imposters, romance inquiries, and online shopping.
IRS investigators report that AI is fueling a surge in cryptocurrency fraud schemes, with victims losing their entire life savings to sophisticated scams.
The UK is intensifying efforts to combat industrialized crypto fraud amid a global rise in financially-motivated cybercrime, with crypto-enabled scams surging to an estimated $17 billion in 2025, and the average victim losing over $2,700.
Cybercriminals are increasingly exploiting the hype surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) to execute sophisticated social engineering attacks, impersonating trusted AI brands like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Anthropic’s Claude, and DeepSeek to deceive victims.
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