Frank Abagnale: AI Will Make This Common Scam Much Worse

Artificial intelligence is predicted to be either humanity’s biggest boon or its dire finish.

Now into the fray comes Frank Abagnale Jr., security consultant and subject of “Catch Me If You Can,” his autobiography that inspired the film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, about his teenage years as a fraudster. 

“AI is going to be a criminal’s dream come true,” Abagnale tells ThinkAdvisor in a recent interview. “Technology breeds crime. It always has, and it always will.”

AI can capture someone’s voice without the person realizing it, and this ruse helps criminals gain access to financial information. One route that fraudsters take is forging checks.

Even in an age of online payments, people are still writing billions of paper checks. Criminals are stealing checks out of U.S. Postal Service mail boxes, washing checks with chemicals to alter the payee’s name and check amount, bribing private truck drivers for access to corporate mail and other nefarious acts.

As a teen, Abagnale forged $2.5 million in checks, for which he served 12 years in prison. For the past 50 years, he has worked as an unpaid consultant to the FBI, providing his expertise in forgery, embezzlement and secured documentation, and he remains popular on the lecture circuit.

Abagnale & Associates’ clients include Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Beyond writing “Catch Me If You Can,” Abagnale authored “The Art of the Steal,” about check forging and counterfeiting. His most recent book is 2019’s “Scam Me If You Can: Simple Strategies to Outsmart Today’s Rip-off Artists.”

In the phone interview, Abagnale advises financial advisors with high-net-worth clients on how they can avoid being victimized: For instance, use high-security checks such as those from SAFEChecks or write them with a Uni-Ball 207 pen, whose ink can’t be washed or altered.

Here are excerpts from our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: Why is check forgery seriously on the rise?

FRANK ABAGNALE: It’s become much easier to do because of technology.  There are so many ways to get hold of checks and alter them. Criminals are always looking for the easiest way. They aren’t looking for challenges — they’re looking for opportunities.

There will always be criminals who aren’t smart enough to know how to get on a computer and make demands with ransomware or commit other cyber-related crimes.

It’s somewhat surprising that so many people are still writing checks instead of paying online. Thoughts?

Checks are still very relevant in our society, especially on the commercial side.

I get so many emails from people who have had their savings wiped out because of forged checks.

Doesn’t new technology help prevent this type of crime?

All the automation and AI that we’re coming up with just makes it easier for criminals.

AI is going to be a criminal’s dream come true. Technology breeds crime. It always has, and it always will. 

There will always be people using technology in a negative, self-serving way.

Why will AI be so enabling to criminals?

There’s nothing it can’t do. And things can be done so easily. Criminals will take advantage of these tools, as they always have.

What’s an example of criminal use of AI?

If you get a phone call, and someone says, “Mrs. Clark?” and you say, “This isn’t Mrs. Clark. You have the wrong number,” that’s all they need.

Now they have your exact voice. So they can pretend to be you. 

They can create anything — passports, driver’s licenses. With AI, they can simply replicate whatever the document is.

Will check forgery increase because of AI?

Oh, yes. Twenty-five years ago, a reporter asked me, “When will we see the paperless society?” I said: “When you see the paperless toilet.” 

And 25 years later, people are still writing billions of checks.

What are some methods that crooks use to steal checks and private information?

There’s check washing with chemicals. If you write a check to me and someone steals it out of a [USPS] mailbox, they can remove my name and the amount of the check and put in a new name and new amount and then deposit that check into their account.

What’s another way?

Let’s say I take a check out of the mailbox that you made out to ExxonMobil for $600. I write my own account number for deposit on the back and take it to the ATM. 

That check will automatically go into my account because no human being will see it.

A big bank, like Chase, Bank of America or Citibank, may not look at checks under $50,000. A small or medium-size bank may look only at checks over $5,000.

So it’s very easy to get by the bank.

What can people do to avoid being victims of check forgery? 

It’s up to the consumer whether they catch it in their bank statement.

The law says you have 30 days from receipt of your statement to notify the bank of any discrepancy. 

Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t reconcile their bank statements. You can’t believe how many people and companies, especially smaller businesses, don’t reconcile; they don’t even open their statements.