Bank Fraud - “Let’s Eat”

Up from its 2021 numbers, fraud and financial crimes, specifically targeting Americans, rose in 2022 to 2.6 billion dollars. With banks and individuals scrambling to recover, adapt, and defend themselves, scammers are always one step ahead and finding new ways to play things in their favor. On top of that, law enforcement estimates suggest that those who plan identity theft and fraud crimes only get caught about 5% of the time. Speaking anecdotally, we’ve encountered people who were able to pull $50-60,000 a week. This has, perhaps quite obviously, drawn the attention of organized gangs and created organized groups of scammers in themselves. Any time a group of people come together, they form best practices, develop strategies to avoid detection, and collaborate to develop new ideas. Fraud is a booming business.

In this week’s post, I wanted to talk about some of the most prevalent terminology I’ve seen within these groups. The better we can understand them forensically (and even on scene while conducting interviews), the less likely we are as investigators to be conned ourselves.

Mule/Walker/Scottie: These are all terms that scammers routinely use. These are typically persons without a home, persons suffering from substance abuse/addiction, or just at-risk persons. Mules are the lowest in the scammer hierarchy and typically carry all, if not most, of the risk. Scammers do their best to compartmentalize and limit how much the mule knows about the operation.

                Handler/Runner: The next level up in the scammer hierarchy. Depending on the complexity of the organization, the handler could be the highest-level scammer (in a small organization), or just a criminal again with compartmentalized knowledge who is tasked with driving the mules, selecting target locations, and handling any counterfeit documents (middle management in essence).

                Head: A bank account holder/owner.

                Open-ups/Burner Accounts: A valuable asset to the scammer, an open-up is a bank account opened up by a mule which is then managed by the scammer for subsequent frauds.

                Dusties: Are aged, older accounts that are valued by scammers.

                Clipped: When a bank account gets frozen.

                Code: Pin number for an account.

                Piece: Debit/Credit Card.

                Sauce/Grub: Checks.

                Cook/Cookup: Making checks.

                Chef: Someone who makes fraud checks.

                Eyes: IDs.

While this is not an exhaustive list, just a taste to get us going as we get more into fraud trends and news. The only way to get ahead of these guys are to understand them.