Jessica Cath on BEYONDai

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Fraud has industrialised, and the UK's own infrastructure makes it a hot spot: payments that move in seconds and a crypto network where fraudulent funds hub. Jessica Cath's anatomy runs from the romance scam's first contact to the snatched phone that becomes a snatched bank branch, and to the young people recruited as money mules. The defences are honest about their limits: banks monitor every payment flow with machine learning and scams remain hard to spot, the annoying are-you-sure questions are the engineered pause doing its job, and in the age of cheap deepfakes her closing instruction is simple: do not trust the face on the screen.

This is the BEYONDai episode of this conversation: the exchange with Jessica Cath produced into a single cut, entity by entity, with the thesis stated and every subject given its own point of view. BEYONDai is our own show, separate from the one the conversation was recorded on, and this is what the episode knits together.

"but we're doing a bit of a kind of catch- up constantly with new methods."Jessica Cath

What the episode knits together

Listen to this episode on BEYONDai: Watch this episode on YouTube · The BEYONDai podcast feed · BEYONDai on YouTube.

Watch or listen to the source conversation: Jessica Cath podcast. It was recorded on The BEYOND Podcast with Aleksandra King.

Episode highlights transcript

Ground in the day to day

Jessica Cath: to this point around the UK really being a hub for faster payments, of course Europe has uh

Jessica Cath: faster payment flows as well, but we really do have some exciting developments in terms of payments

Jessica Cath: players which enable payments to move very very fast. We also have um a really good kind of crypto

Jessica Cath: network as well, which again is a bit of a hub when it comes to

Jessica Cath: fraudulent funds. Um crypto of course in the US is becoming more prevalent because of Trump's

Jessica Cath: love of crypto, uh but until this point the, regulatory frameworks have been tricky in the US. So

Jessica Cath: the UK really is a bit of a hot spot when it comes to fraud.

Aleksandra King: It is. I'm I'm disappointed. Um but in terms of the cost, so I don't know if this is correct, so

Aleksandra King: correct me if I'm wrong, that fraud now costs more than the global dru drug trade Literally. more

Aleksandra King: than the global drug trade.

Jessica Cath: It does indeed, yeah. And when we think i it's impo almost impossible to think about it. Um because

Jessica Cath: when we think about crime, we think about drugs and, that's when we think about money laundering,

Jessica Cath: we talk think about organized crime, but actually fraud is something that impacts people on the

Jessica Cath: ground in the day to day. Another statistic that's really interesting is that over forty percent of

Jessica Cath: all the crime in the UK no, matter what crime is fraud. And do we think that the

There are multiple different types of scammer

Jessica Cath: it's very difficult for na for banks uh financial institutions to try and track that money because

Jessica Cath: in the world of financial crime prevention that I'm in uh transaction monitoring has become a huge

Jessica Cath: complex thing. So if you are scammed, the bank or whoever you bank with

Jessica Cath: will be monitoring all of your payment flows. And they're doing incredible things to look at

Jessica Cath: changes in behaviors using AI machine learning models to try and assess whether or not this is a

Jessica Cath: bit of a different payment. But that's all very very hard to spot um, depending on the scam. So

Jessica Cath: actually identifying that it's a scam can be very very hard. So there are just multiple different

Jessica Cath: reasons that this is a very difficult thing to prevent.

Jessica Cath: There are multiple different types of scammer. So you might think that it's someone like you or I

Jessica Cath: sat on the end of a phone doing some scams as a bit of a side hustle uh and there are some low

Jessica Cath: level scammers uh it's becoming easier through AI to do some low level scams. But a lot of it is

Jessica Cath: actually connected to large global organized crime and that makes it really difficult to try and

Jessica Cath: stop. So when we start to peel back the layers of some

Jessica Cath: these scams. If you take a romance scam for example um which there was a report that came out only

Jessica Cath: yesterday and romance scams are on the increase uh at a large scale in the UK and a lot of these

Jessica Cath: are produced by scam factories in southeast Asia, so on the border of Myanmar often. And these are

Jessica Cath: huge scam factories with often people trafficked people who have been trafficked into these scam

Account details send, me the money

Jessica Cath: else or the website domains. It's very hard to spot unless you know what you're looking for. Um and

Jessica Cath: in those cases obviously banks are actually at at the moment out crawling to see who's creating

Jessica Cath: fake websites of their firms and trying to g make sure that customers are aware. But if you're an

Jessica Cath: individual that doesn't know anything about financial crime prevention, you th might think you're

Jessica Cath: just logging into your bank.

Aleksandra King: elderly and teenagers and although the teenagers they are growing up to be a bit more savvy because

Aleksandra King: they know how much of this is going on, they won't click on things they don't know. And um even my

Aleksandra King: teenager wh she'll check, you know, she'll take the URL and she'll plug it into chat GPT and

Aleksandra King: go valid or not? Question mark. Check. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica Cath: savvy but they are as well more at risk of things like money muelling. Um so young people are often

Jessica Cath: at risk of becoming a money mule and money mule is oh like a like a donkey or a mule that's

Jessica Cath: carrying something um and it's basically carrying money from one place to another. So this is where

Jessica Cath: you might have a uh scammer or s another type of financial crime, that's where their money's come

Jessica Cath: in from and they

Jessica Cath: asking to use your account to move that to somewhere else. So you might just be part of the

Jessica Cath: transition and carrying that money and moving it from one place to another. Um and often they

Jessica Cath: target young people because young people are looking for quick ways to make a little bit of extra

Jessica Cath: crac cash on the side um and it's a really easy thing to do. You say absolutely these are my

Jessica Cath: account details send, me the money. You often keep a small portion of the fee and then the m you

Jessica Cath: just send the money else

Jessica Cath: And young people don't often realize that you're doing something illegal, which can ruin your

Jessica Cath: credit rating, if the bank spots it, your every your accounts will be shut down. Um I know some

Done through money muelling when they're younger

Jessica Cath: young people that have been unable to get mortgages in future because of activities that they've

Jessica Cath: done through money muelling when they're younger. They might not think that they're doing something

Jessica Cath: criminal, but being part of that money laundering flow, you are gosh, this is

Jessica Cath: actually I I'm so glad we're talking right now because I hear you know you hear about drug mules

Jessica Cath: and you think okay well you've that's a terrible thing you meet the wrong people you're

Jessica Cath: transporting these drugs across and that's it your life's ruined basically um but this is a money mule

Jessica Cath: thing more, subtle very, dangerous for these teenagers and they need to know about it they r we

Jessica Cath: need to get this out there this, has gotta be a short it's gotta come with a warning and say all

Jessica Cath: teenagers listen to this that's, really scary so, how will they know that they've been money muelled

Jessica Cath: are the signs for this for the t for the teens?

Jessica Cath: So anyone that's asking you to you know can I send you some money if you move it somewhere else um

Jessica Cath: the challenge is often it comes through people that you semi-know. So it might be through a school

Jessica Cath: friend or it might be from a university friend or a a friend of a friend and you feel like there's

Jessica Cath: an element of trust there.

Start and then it increases upwards quite quickly

Jessica Cath: relies on pressure. So if you have anything that is a pressure to move money at speed, that is a

Jessica Cath: red flag. So often it'll be um I don't know, my mother is in hospital, I need money to pay for her

Jessica Cath: please, can you help me out, I need ten thousand pounds. Or they might need just one thousand to

Jessica Cath: start and then it increases upwards quite quickly. And all of the scams are around some form of

Jessica Cath: pressure to move money quickly.

Aleksandra King: Mm. It makes me think of my my parents, you know, when they sometimes come to me and my dad will

Aleksandra King: say oh, I've got an email and there's a potential thing to invest in and this and that and whenever

Aleksandra King: I hear anyone just anyone asking for money ever ma no no no no, it's just

Jessica Cath: way to go. But it's a sad situation where y you you have to go out not trusting anyone and

Jessica Cath: questioning before you make any payment.

Jessica Cath: Um so phone calls you will not get any more. Um phone calls will not take place. Uh but if someone

Jessica Cath: does phone you, it's absolutely one hundred percent a scam. So phone calls, no. Um and if you are

Jessica Cath: receiving a message or an email and you're not sure about it, phone your bank on the number that

Jessica Cath: you know is the bank and ask them and say I've just received this message, can you confirm, they

Jessica Cath: will confirm and then you can you can do it that way.

Yourself and banks must allow you to make payments

Jessica Cath: your phone wouldn't be able to see that icon. So there are some ways and techniques that people are

Jessica Cath: trying to deploy to stop this, but ultimately it's it's a pretty sad situation to be in where we're

Jessica Cath: worried about, you know, forty thousand instantly leaving our our accounts if you have your phone

Jessica Cath: stolen.

Aleksandra King: Mm.

Aleksandra King: Gosh. Okay, a term I've heard um push payments. What are push payments?

Jessica Cath: So authorised push payments or APP fraud is a particular type of fraud. Uh this is very

Jessica Cath: difficult for banks to spot because this is where you or I actually authorise that payment

Jessica Cath: ourselves. So for example in COVID we're all sat at home thinking I really want a new puppy APP

Jessica Cath: fraud puppy scams were really popular. So this would be where you see uh an advert for a new puppy

Jessica Cath: and you think this is

Jessica Cath: brilliant. And you authorise a payment for the puppy or the deposit and you never get that money

Jessica Cath: back and you never get the puppy. And it's really uh common in terms of purchase scams, that kind

Jessica Cath: of thing. So if you see something online, you authorise a payment and then actually the the the

Jessica Cath: thing never turns up. It's really hard for banks to spot because you are authorising that payment

Jessica Cath: yourself and banks must allow you to make payments. You must be

Jessica Cath: able to make your own payments, you are the master of your own destiny when it comes to moving your

Jessica Cath: own money around. But what if it's a scam?

Generated images and videos

Jessica Cath: were struggling to spot quite a few of them. Um and that's where only AI is good at spotting AI

Jessica Cath: generated images and videos. So I suppose it's not all a doom and gloom story because there is

Jessica Cath: quite a lot of financial crime prevention that's using these technologies to try and prevent scams,

Jessica Cath: but we're doing a bit of a kind of catch- up constantly with new methods.

Aleksandra King: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Cath: So at the moment the most conviv convincing deepfakes have still been images. So um using people's

Jessica Cath: images or fake images to create open new accounts um in terms of videos they're getting there, but

Jessica Cath: most of the deepfakes are still just people's images being used in different ways

Jessica Cath: to circumvent controls and move our listen money around.

Aleksandra King: So um in terms of governments learning about this, because you know governments in a way are

Aleksandra King: administrators as well, they put things in place, but they need the knowledge the know-how to know

Aleksandra King: what to put in place. Are they talking to people like you to your company? They are?

Top three f red flags for scamming

Jessica Cath: things happening at banks, at Fintechs, to try and help you process payments safely. So when for

Jessica Cath: example on your banking app, when you're making a payment, you might now see a million and one

Jessica Cath: questions that say

Jessica Cath: do you want to make this payment? Are you sure you want to make this payment? Can you explain why

Jessica Cath: you're making this payment? And whilst that might be annoying, actually it's designed to take you

Jessica Cath: through that that pausing, reflecting and thinking process before you verify any sort of large

Jessica Cath: movement of fun of funds to a new third party. So that's what it's designed to do. It might be

Jessica Cath: annoying, but please do take note and think about those questions when you get them if you're just

Jessica Cath: about to move your money somewhere.

Aleksandra King: Hmm. I did notice those messages coming out actually. So top three f red flags for scamming. What

Aleksandra King: would they be?

Jessica Cath: So for me the top three, I mean the first would definitely be speed. So um and the urgency. Speed

Jessica Cath: or urgency, I don't know if that's one or two, but the urgency um if you have got something that is

Jessica Cath: coming through with urgency, not many things are that urgent. So if it's an urgent please move the

Jessica Cath: funds it's h it's highly likely to be a scam. Um the second red flag is anything around sort of the

Jessica Cath: emotional manipulation.

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Narration is AI-generated. Everything said in the conversation is human.