Stranger Than Fiction

In the Hot Seat

Financial fraud is a full-blown epidemic. Geoff White, Investigative Journalist and Author of Rinsed jumps in the hot seat to explain the current landscape, what the future might look like, and how getting back to the basics of employee engagement might be the best defense companies have against fraudsters.

Key Takeaways.

• [0:0] Denise Johansson puts Geoff White, Investigative Journalist and Author of Rinsed, in the hot seat.
• [2:24] Social media feeds are feeding the fraud epidemic while a cashless society removes friction for laundering and money routing.
• [4:53] Geoff explains how the layered world of money laundering has evolved with technologies and into unexpected sectors like gaming.
• [7:28] How North Korean money heists led Geoff to write Rinse.
• [9:35] The most astonishingly strange theft Geoff knows about, from billion-dollar salamander video games to totalitarian regimes laundering hundreds of millions of hot crypto.
• [13:47] Is 5 years too much or too little for financial crimes?
• [14:57] Geoff explains who AI is currently benefiting most and why AI battling AI won’t necessarily come to pass.
• [17:26] How defenders can keep the AI advantage over time through auditing.
• [19:51] The current state of action for individual defrauded customers needs to be more cohesive and encouraging both for customers and law enforcement.
• [23:26] Social media platforms and the dilution of responsibility.
• [26:06] Geoff’s 1-2-3 advice for fintechs looking to increase their fraud detection.
• [28:11] Back to the basics: Phishing messages. The future of fraud control is awareness and employee engagement!
• [29:23] How an employee looking for a new job costs a company 625 million dollars.
• [32:11] Denise signs out until the next time she puts an industry leader in the hot seat.

People.

• Guest Geoff White, Investigative Journalist and Author of Rinsed: From Cartels to Crypto: How the Tech Industry Washes Money for the World's Deadliest Crooks.
• Host Denise Johansson, co-CEO and co-Founder of Enfuce, a female-founded fintech helping drive business growth, solve customer challenges, and extend financial inclusion.

Links.

• Rinsed
• Enfuce

Guest Quotes (edited).

• We are now increasingly in a cashless society. That gives more digital routes for stealing people's money or conning them out of it. — Geoff White, Rinsed, InTheHotSeat
• The public thinks that video games and Bitcoin are not real money. But actually, it is still worth millions and millions of pounds if you can transfer it into usable money. — Geoff White, Rinsed, InTheHotSeat
• Many people think that cybercriminals are just geniuses: A few lines of code and that's it, your money's gone! Computer hackers are very good at breaking into banks, but what they're not so good at is once they've got in: Taking the money out, washing it, and hiding the traces. — Geoff White, Rinsed, InTheHotSeat
• Hackers are very good at code, malware, phishing, social engineering, and working out how your servers work. But to transfer the money, you need to know about Swift, IBANs, and MoneyMule accounts. — Geoff White, Rinsed, InTheHotSeat
• Transferring out the 625 million dollars, in the form of crypto, took one minute 55 seconds. Fastest crime ever, hands down. — Geoff White, Rinsed, InTheHotSeat
• You have this bizarre situation where there is a video game involving salamanders, half a billion stolen by the most dangerous regime in the world and the crypto and tech community prosecuting the U.S. government when they take action against it! — Geoff White, Rinsed, InTheHotSea
• Do I have to build an AI system to defraud you? No. What I need to know are the parameters that your AI is sticking to and work around those. I don't have to build my own AI to get around yours. — Geoff White, Rinsed, InTheHotSeat
• Where there's lots of money sloshing about with lots of values going down, international trade, and lack of regulation, that's where you'll find the money launderers. And cryptocurrency, video gaming, and NFTs. — Geoff White, Rinsed, InTheHotSeat

Denise Quotes (edited).

• The fraud epidemic is being driven by advances in AI, cryptocurrency, and scamming techniques that are leaving even the most trained detectives scratching their heads. — Denise Johansson, InTheHotSeat
• For the experts in money laundering and cybercrime, the world they work in is getting more and more interesting, if not more and more disturbing. — Denise Johansson, InTheHotSeat
• When it comes to fraud detection, we've been talking more about how to detect false positives, but it might be time to identify the false negatives and understand why they went through. — Denise Johansson, InTheHotSeat