Fraud Forward

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!I want to talk about something that might be a little uncomfortable. It isn’t about a new scheme or a criminal using AI to break into a bank. It’s about our own fraud controls, and the gap between having them and knowing they work. Two stories from the past week made me want to have this conversation. The first is a $350 million penalty against American Express National Bank tied to deficiencies in its BSA and AML program. The second is a guilty plea from a former TD Bank employee who admitted to accepting bribes and helping launder more than $4.8 million. The facts are very different, and neither institution looks like a community bank or credit union with a fraud team of two. Even so, the same questions show up at every size. Does your risk assessment reflect the business you run today? Who reviews the people with the power to override a control? And when someone finds a weakness, who makes sure it gets fixed?I’m also bringing in what we’ve learned from our financial institution fraud benchmarking research, because it points to a question I keep returning to. What does a mature fraud program actually look like? Let’s get into it.What you’ll hear in this episode:Why the American Express enforcement action is a lesson in fraud risk assessment, and what happens when an assessment focuses on a narrow part of a much larger businessWhy the roughly $13 billion in suspected activity cited by the OCC reflects deficiencies in a BSA and AML program, and why it shouldn’t be repeated as a fraud lossHow a former TD Bank employee allegedly used legitimate access to unblock restricted cards, and why employee override monitoring deserves more attention than it getsWhat 86 accounts at one commercial address teach us about transaction monitoring and what should happen after an alert firesPractical ways smaller teams can use compensating controls when they can’t fully separate dutiesWhy documenting a known control weakness is not the same as managing it, and how remediation tracking can quietly stallA simple framework that separates control existence vs execution vs effectivenessMetrics that show real exposure to leadership, beyond alert counts and cases closedFive questions to bring to your fraud team on MondayYou should listen to this episode if you:Lead or support a fraud program at a community bank or credit union and have to cover a lot of ground with a small teamWant to know whether your fraud risk assessment is driving decisions or only documenting themAre responsible for managing insider risk or employee access and want practical ways to review overridesNeed help explaining known control weaknesses to leadership in a way that leads to actionAre comparing your program against peers and want to know what a mature fraud program looks like

What's up fraud fighters and welcome back to Fraud Forward!I just got home from Las Vegas at four in the morning on Friday after starting the week in Washington DC. I am home for exactly two more sleeps before I turn around and leave again. Today there is no guest. It is just me, my microphone, and a notebook full of things to talk about.I started the week at HHS then I flew from DC to Vegas for ACAMS The Assembly. Two completely different rooms. Yet I kept writing down versions of the same thing. Culture. Data. Accountability. Collaboration. Speed. Technology.And then one sentence from Washington ended up framing the entire week for me. Fraud follows money. That is how this episode starts and that is how it ends. Where the money goes, fraud follows. When the money changes, fraud changes. When the way we move money gets faster, fraud gets faster. When we create a new product, somebody figures out how to exploit it. When we close one vulnerability, they find another.That is fraud driven flows in practice. And if you pay attention to where the money is going next, you will have a much better picture of where the fraud is going.What you’ll hear in this episode:Why fraud driven flows connects real-time payments fraud, stablecoin fraud risks, and check fraud in the digital age into one through lineGovernment fraud program banking parallels that reframe how we think about audit accountability and corrective actionWhy fraud prevention stewardship and the line a dollar saved is worth more than a dollar recovered should change how we talk to leadershipHow fraud program culture functions as a control and why fraud incentive misalignment quietly defeats everything else we buildWhat ACAMS Assembly 2026 insights on real-time payments fraud and stablecoin financial crime risks mean for fraud risk beyond organizational boundaryWhy fraud technology before problem definition is still one of the most expensive mistakes in fraud programs and what AI fraud results measurement should actually look likeHow fraud program single point of failure is a fraud risk hiding inside a staffing conversationWhy fraud collaboration operationalized looks nothing like fraud collaboration discussedYou should listen to this episode if you:Lead a fraud program and have ever felt like you are having the same conversation in completely different roomsAre trying to figure out how to measure fraud prevention value and tell a better story to leadershipCare about fraud program culture and want to hear why it functions as a control, not a soft conceptHave ever bought technology before understanding the problem you were trying to solveAre dealing with fraud knowledge retention risk because one person on your team knows everything and you are not sure what happens when they leave

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!Today I’m sitting in the guest chair.If you caught the episode of The Saturday Fraud Strategist that dropped alongside this one, you already know Chen Zamir and I decided to swap roles. He came on Fraud Forward to interview me, and I went on his show to interview him. We are heading to Money 20/20 in Vegas together and thought this would be a fun way to kick it off.I spend a lot of time asking questions. Sitting on the other side of the mic is a different experience, and Chen does not ask easy questions. This conversation went places I did not fully expect. We ended in a discussion about how to build a fraud program that works, and more importantly, what gets in the way. If you have ever walked into an organization that has been fighting fraud for a year, spent money on vendors and headcount, and still were at the same place you started, this episode is for you. The answer is a lot deeper than adding another tool.What you will hear in this episode:How to build a fraud program assessment when you walk into an organization that has been struggling and nobody can tell you whyWhy fraud and risk management starts with people, process, technology, and data in that order, and why most organizations start with technology and create more problemsThe fraud capacity planning model I built as a practitioner to prove headcount needs to executives, including the three-minute-per-alert calculation and how to build a 40-hour week model that accounts for everything your team actually doesWhy fraud team structure matters before you can optimize anything, and how to answer the centralized versus decentralized question before you start hiring or buyingThe fraud risk assessment framework I consider the most important tool in a fraud leader's program, including the difference between inherent risk vs residual risk fraud and why a lack of losses does not mean a lack of riskWhy fraud technology layering done wrong looks like stacking medications that interact badly with each other, and what fraud technology gap analysis actually looks like before a vendor demoHow authorized push payment fraud breaks the fraud stack that was built around a single question, is this actually our customer, and why scam detection behavioral signals require a completely different approachThe scam intervention banking framework I used as a practitioner, including targeted friction, cooling off periods, and the phrase I call my mic drop momentHow I approach fraud executive communication and fraud program advocacy when leadership sees losses on a dashboard and misses the fifteen million the team preventedThe fraud dashboard reporting model I want to see: attempted fraud, prevented fraud, actual loss, normalized against transaction volume or deposits, not just gross fraud lossesWhy human in the loop fraud AI is not scalable and what human on the loop means for fraud team skill development right nowWhere fraud program maturity actually stands based on the benchmarking work I have been doing, and why fraud teams are doing better than we give ourselves credit forYou should listen to this episode if you:Are building or rebuilding a fraud program and want to hear how I actually approach it from the ground up, not a framework from a textbook but the real process I used as a practitionerHave ever had to justify headcount, technology, or budget to a leadership team that does not fully understand what fraud prevention actually involves and want a model that makes the case with dataWork at a bank or credit union and are feeling the pressure of the shift from unauthorized fraud to authorized push payment fraud and scams and are not sure how to adapt your fraud stackWant the fraud capacity planning model I built manually as a practitioner, the three-minute-per-alert calculation and the 40-hour week breakdown that finally got leadership to listenAre trying to figure out where AI fits in your fraud program without losing the investigators you have spent years developingLead a fraud team and want to know where fraud program maturity actually stands based on the benchmarking work I have been doing across financial institutionsHave ever walked into a room of blank stares when you asked your team what is actually driving fraud losses and needed a better starting point for that conversation

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!I am bringing you more from here at IAFCI in Nashville. I've caught up with fraud fighters, bank executives, and law enforcement leaders for a rapid-fire soundcheck on where fraud is headed. I've been asking everyone I sit down with the same question. If you had one word to describe fraud in 2026, what would it be? The answers ranged from trending and explosive, to complex, and evolving. Sometimes fraud couldn't be contained by only one word. Honestly, they all fit.There were so many great conversations this week. They didn't fit into one episode. They barely fit into two. So this episode is a rapid series of conversations covering everything from bust out fraud to elder fraud prevention, dealership schemes, and where IAFCI itself is headed under new leadership. Every one of these conversations left me with something I want to bring straight back to you. These conversations are not just about what we are facing. But also how we can overcome the rising challenges in our community, the tools, the collaboration, and the partnerships between law enforcement and banking that are only getting stronger. Let's get into it. What you'll hear in this episode:Why bust out fraud is being called a real hot topic right now. How these rings are migrating away from California and Florida as enforcement catches up.How auto lending fraud, first party fraud, and income misrepresentation are showing up together. Why leaning on consortium data and application data fraud signals is more important than relying on credit reports alone.How dealerships that barely exist are financing cars that were never actually delivered.Why business email compromise is still a top concern on the commercial banking side, and the stop call and confirm habit that stops it cold.Building a fraud prevention platform started with understanding the problem firsthand by moving into senior living communities. A fresh way to think about scam education as a behavior change problem, not just an awareness problem.Why check fraud trends remain a serious concern for community bank fraud programs, even as fraudsters increasingly bring AI targeted fraud attacks to smaller institutions.How law enforcement bank collaboration through IAFCI industry working groups is turning strangers into the people you call when a case needs to move fast.What's ahead for IAFCI itself, including new fraud policy and regulation partnerships and a membership goal of 10,000 by the end of the current term.You should listen to this episode if you:Work in auto lending, dealership finance, or first party fraud detection and want real, current examples of bust out fraud.Are on the commercial banking side and want a reminder of how effective stop call and confirm still is against business email compromise.Care about elder fraud prevention and want to hear how one approach was built from direct, in-person research.Lead fraud or risk at a community bank and want perspective on check fraud trends and AI targeted fraud attacks hitting smaller institutions.Believe law enforcement bank collaboration is underrated and want real examples of what that actually looks like in practice.Want a fast-moving, one-word-answer kind of episode that still leaves you with real, usable takeaways.

What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward!This episode is another one that is unplugged, on the road, and recorded live at IAFCI International in Nashville. I am spending more time talking with the people who fight fraud from every angle. This time we talked about consumer fraud, identity theft, romance scams, account takeover on someone’s personal banking app, and the stuff that leads to the nightly news. But businesses get defrauded too, and when they do, it doesn’t just hit a balance sheet. It hits jobs, it hits communities, yet it barely hits the headlines.These conversations will hit on a lot, and we will cover one topic that maybe doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves. B2B fraud. From business identity verification, synthetic business entities, the regulatory gaps opening up around beneficial ownership, and where AI is genuinely helping instead of just adding to the noise.Sit down, and let’s get into it with the fraud fighters sounding off on B2B fraud, synthetic entities, and everything AI is changing about the fight ahead.What you'll hear in this episode:Why B2B fraud gets a fraction of the attention consumer fraud does, even though the downstream impact on employees and communities can be just as severe.How synthetic business entities and beneficial ownership fraud are becoming easier to pull off, and why recent FinCEN ownership rule changes are widening that gap.A real example of business email compromise reaching its highest recorded volume in FinCEN's history, and how compromised business inbox markets let criminals study a company's own email patterns before striking.What abandoned identity fraud actually means, criminals exploiting the identities of babies, deceased individuals, and people who simply don't monitor their own credit.Why traditional banking fraud vulnerabilities, like slow-moving cross-border wire fraud, are getting overlooked while everyone's attention shifts to AI and crypto.A practical framework for proactive fraud detection, including fraud detection beyond login and why the real fight starts before someone ever reaches your app.How layered fraud detection stacks and agentic AI fraud tools are being used to catch AI-scaled attacks, including one financial institution that saw 250,000 fraudulent account signups in a matter of days.Why IAFCI conference collaboration, a shared conversation, a follow-up call, a number saved after one good conversation, is still one of the most effective fraud-fighting tools out there.You should listen to this episode if you:Work in business banking, commercial lending, or B2B fraud detection and want to hear this category taken seriously.Are responsible for business identity verification and want to understand how beneficial ownership fraud is shifting under new FinCEN rules.Have been affected by business email compromise or want to understand how compromised business inbox markets actually operate.Are building or evaluating layered fraud detection stacks and want real examples of agentic AI fraud tools in production.Believe fraud detection beyond login matters as much as anything happening inside your app.Want a genuine feel for why IAFCI conference collaboration keeps coming up as fraud fighters' biggest advantage.