Scammers are becoming ever more sophisticated - this is what the fightback looks like
In 2024, Kirsty, a woman in her 40s living in North Yorkshire, met a man on a dating website who said he was an English businessman working in Turkey.
He shared a picture that he claimed was of himself showing his chiselled abs on the beach and claimed to be financially secure. He even used a banking website to persuade her he had $600,000 (£443,600) in savings.
But after two weeks of chatting, he said he'd been mugged and his phone and computer had been stolen, and he asked her to buy him a phone and to pay some bills for him with her money. What happened next perfectly illustrates the international web that scammers weave.
Kirsty bought a phone in the UK and posted it to a block of flats in northern Cyprus, where the man told her he was visiting for work, and bit by bit over a period of two months she transferred £80,000 from her bank account. She'd borrowed £50,000 of it from her family, in the belief the man she loved was in trouble. All on his promise he'd pay her back as soon as he could get back into his bank account.
But in fact the phone ended up in Lagos, Nigeria, and the £80,000 went to people with Nigerian, Romanian and other European names via money transfer services. The man was not British, but Nigerian, using a voice disguiser to deceive his target.
Even the banking website he had shown Kirsty shortly after meeting her turned out to be a very sophisticated fake registered in the US city of Baltimore.
Meanwhile developing nations, where many of the scam operations are based – especially Myanmar, West Africa and South Asia – are being asked to do more, often without the resources to do so.
It is a stark reminder of the imbalance: of criminals exploiting impoverished communities with opportunities to make money that they wouldn't otherwise have. And for some countries tackling things that are much more elemental to their own population's existence have to take precedence over worrying about financial crimes in wealthier countries.
What really caught my ear was Xolisile Khanyile, a financial crimes prosecutor from South Africa, outlining this tension. She argued that two-way collaboration was critical: if developing nations are to help destroy fraud networks, wealthier countries need to share their technical expertise and resources too.
She said in her experience, developed nations will complain about a lack of resources without understanding that fighting industrialised fraud needs "fit-for-purpose skills like your forensic accountants, experts on crypto, experts in open source investigations, so that we will be able to make a difference."
When I spoke to the UK's Fraud Minister, Lord Hanson of Flint, he told me punishing countries for refusing or failing to cooperate on tackling scams could be counterproductive. Instead, he said, the focus should be on "soft power".
"What I can do is try to get international cooperation to ensure that we have outcomes which support the making of fraud harder for criminals, make their costs harder, bring them to account, and if we can freeze any assets they're making from those fraudulent activities."
There is also the question of whether the authorities and big tech are working closely enough together. "It's long been my opinion that the big tech companies and social media giants need to be far more involved and at a far more operational level," says Steve Head, who is now retired but was previously the UK's first National Coordinator for Economic Crime. In 2014 he helped break up the so-called boiler room scams operating from Spain that tricked British people into investing in non-existent shares.
"It's these multifaceted international relationships with big business that we really need to be strengthening far more than we have," he adds.
Digital firms including Amazon and Meta were at the summit, signed the joint statement, and have stepped up their anti-scam protections. Dating platform Match.com has cracked down on fake accounts, and says it now removes 50 every minute.
Head says he learned laying the groundwork for successful action took time before any operational activity took place, and the same applies to cooperating with tech firms. "That's still about creating and demonstrating that mutual benefit, and it's about building trust between the partners and mutual respect."
Read the full story at BBC ↗
Sophisticated scam networks exploit both victims in wealthy nations and economic desperation in developing countries. A documented case shows how one victim was defrauded of £80,000 through a fake romance, with money routed through multiple countries via money transfer services. Experts identify three barriers to effective enforcement: resource imbalances between nations, insufficient collaboration between authorities and tech platforms, and the competing priorities developing nations face. Solutions discussed include mutual capacity-building between countries, building trust-based partnerships with technology companies, and focusing on making fraud operationally harder rather than punitive approaches.
Read the full story at BBC ↗
In 2024, Kirsty, a woman in her 40s living in North Yorkshire, met a man on a dating website who said he was an English businessman working in Turkey.
He shared a picture that he claimed was of himself showing his chiselled abs on the beach and claimed to be financially secure. He even used a banking website to persuade her he had $600,000 (£443,600) in savings.
But after two weeks of chatting, he said he'd been mugged and his phone and computer had been stolen, and he asked her to buy him a phone and to pay some bills for him with her money. What happened next perfectly illustrates the international web that scammers weave.
Kirsty bought a phone in the UK and posted it to a block of flats in northern Cyprus, where the man told her he was visiting for work, and bit by bit over a period of two months she transferred £80,000 from her bank account. She'd borrowed £50,000 of it from her family, in the belief the man she loved was in trouble. All on his promise he'd pay her back as soon as he could get back into his bank account.
But in fact the phone ended up in Lagos, Nigeria, and the £80,000 went to people with Nigerian, Romanian and other European names via money transfer services. The man was not British, but Nigerian, using a voice disguiser to deceive his target.
Even the banking website he had shown Kirsty shortly after meeting her turned out to be a very sophisticated fake registered in the US city of Baltimore.
Meanwhile developing nations, where many of the scam operations are based – especially Myanmar, West Africa and South Asia – are being asked to do more, often without the resources to do so.
It is a stark reminder of the imbalance: of criminals exploiting impoverished communities with opportunities to make money that they wouldn't otherwise have. And for some countries tackling things that are much more elemental to their own population's existence have to take precedence over worrying about financial crimes in wealthier countries.
What really caught my ear was Xolisile Khanyile, a financial crimes prosecutor from South Africa, outlining this tension. She argued that two-way collaboration was critical: if developing nations are to help destroy fraud networks, wealthier countries need to share their technical expertise and resources too.
She said in her experience, developed nations will complain about a lack of resources without understanding that fighting industrialised fraud needs "fit-for-purpose skills like your forensic accountants, experts on crypto, experts in open source investigations, so that we will be able to make a difference."
When I spoke to the UK's Fraud Minister, Lord Hanson of Flint, he told me punishing countries for refusing or failing to cooperate on tackling scams could be counterproductive. Instead, he said, the focus should be on "soft power".
"What I can do is try to get international cooperation to ensure that we have outcomes which support the making of fraud harder for criminals, make their costs harder, bring them to account, and if we can freeze any assets they're making from those fraudulent activities."
There is also the question of whether the authorities and big tech are working closely enough together. "It's long been my opinion that the big tech companies and social media giants need to be far more involved and at a far more operational level," says Steve Head, who is now retired but was previously the UK's first National Coordinator for Economic Crime. In 2014 he helped break up the so-called boiler room scams operating from Spain that tricked British people into investing in non-existent shares.
"It's these multifaceted international relationships with big business that we really need to be strengthening far more than we have," he adds.
Digital firms including Amazon and Meta were at the summit, signed the joint statement, and have stepped up their anti-scam protections. Dating platform Match.com has cracked down on fake accounts, and says it now removes 50 every minute.
Head says he learned laying the groundwork for successful action took time before any operational activity took place, and the same applies to cooperating with tech firms. "That's still about creating and demonstrating that mutual benefit, and it's about building trust between the partners and mutual respect."
Read the full story at BBC ↗
In 2024, a woman in her 40s from North Yorkshire was defrauded of £80,000 over two months by a scammer posing as a British businessman The scammer used a fake banking website, voice disguiser, and coordinated money transfers through Nigerian, Romanian and other European intermediaries The phone sent to Cyprus ultimately reached Lagos, Nigeria, indicating the international coordination of the scam network Scam operations are concentrated in developing nations including Myanmar, West Africa and South Asia Developing nations lack sufficient resources to tackle financial crimes in wealthier countries despite being asked to do so Wealthier countries should share technical expertise and resources with developing nations to effectively dismantle fraud networks Tech companies and social media platforms are not involved enough at an operational level in anti-scam efforts Match.com removes approximately 50 fake accounts per minute
Read the full story at BBC ↗
- A romance scammer impersonating a British businessman stole £80,000 from a North Yorkshire woman over two months using fake banking websites and voice disguising technology
- Scam networks operate internationally across Nigeria, Romania and other countries, exploiting economic opportunities in developing nations while targeting victims in wealthier countries
- Experts argue tackling industrial-scale fraud requires wealthier nations to share technical expertise and resources with developing countries, combined with stronger collaboration between authorities and technology platforms