Under pressure

Generations that grew up with the internet aren’t immune to online fraud schemes. In fact, trust in online platforms, heavy involvement in social media and financial pressures facing Gen Z and millennials put them at greater risk of being victimized by fraudsters than older adults. Fraud Magazine explores how younger generations become victims — and perpetrators — and what fraud examiners can do to educate them about fraud.

EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There’s also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

On Oct. 31, 2023, personal finance columnist Charlotte Cowles withdrew $50,000 from her savings account, taped it inside a shoebox and handed it to a stranger in a Mercedes SUV outside her Brooklyn, New York, apartment. The business-savvy millennial, who chronicled her experience in The Cut last year, never thought she’d fall for a scam.

That Halloween morning she answered her phone, and “Krista” introduced herself as an Amazon customer services representative and asked if Cowles had spent $8,000 on MacBooks and iPads. Cowles said she hadn’t and agreed to be connected to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) liaison with whom Amazon was supposedly working to fight identity theft and false accounts. She was transferred to FTC investigator “Calvin Mitchell,” who used social-engineering tactics to gain her trust and override her rational thought process. He weaved a complex narrative that involved drug smuggling, money laundering and the CIA. Mitchell knew Cowles’ personal details, such as her Social Security number, home address and family members’ names. He told her that she was in “imminent danger.” He said that her home was being watched and her laptop had been hacked. He dissuaded her from contacting her husband, and kept her on the line, transferring her to “Michael Sarano,” who supposedly worked for the CIA on cases involving the FTC. Both fake FTC and CIA agents provided Cowles with badge numbers.

The con culminated with Cowles withdrawing $50,000 from her bank account hours later and giving the cash to an imposter CIA agent. After telling her husband about the scam, they contacted the police. In the aftermath, Cowles says she felt humiliated and vulnerable. Eventually, she went to therapy.

As the victim of what she called “psychological warfare,” Cowles wondered how she could’ve been “such easy prey.”

“Scam victims tend to be single, lonely, and economically insecure with low financial literacy,” she wrote. “I am none of those things. … I’m a journalist who had a weekly column in the ‘Business’ section of the New York Times. I’ve written a personal-finance column for this magazine [The Cut] for the past seven years. I interview money experts all the time and take their advice seriously. I’m married and talk to my friends, family and colleagues every day.”

Cowles doesn’t fit the profile of an ideal mark. According to joint research by the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and the Stanford Center on Longevity, fraud victims tend to be socially isolated. The survey of more than 1,000 Americans and Canadians indicates that fraud victims reported significantly higher feelings of loneliness. Those at the greatest risk of fraud are financially strapped young adults or those with low levels of financial literacy.

Cowles’ brush with fraud serves as a reminder that anyone can be deceived by sophisticated tactics, but her story also illustrates another concerning trend: Younger people are losing money to fraud at a higher rate than older adults. As Cowles noted in her article, “When I’ve told people this story, most of them say the same thing: You don’t seem like the type of person this would happen to. What they mean is that I’m not senile, or hysterical, or a rube. But these stereotypes are actually false.”

Indeed, as data from the FTC’s 2023 Consumer Sentinel Network shows, 44% of 20- to 29-year-olds reported losing money to fraud compared to 25% of 70- to 79-year-olds. GOBankingRates’ 2023 Keep Your Money Safe survey found that 35% of Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) and millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) indicated they were victims of phone-related financial scams. Only 25% of adults aged 45 to 54 (Generation X) admitted to being victims of phone scams. The survey also showed that younger people reported being victims of Social Security scams more than older people. In the survey, 18% of Gen Zers and 11% of millennials reported being victims. Only 7% of Gen Xers and less than 2% of respondents aged 65 and older admitted to being victims.

And there’s another concerning facet to fraud affecting younger people. A 2024 Sift report shows that Generation Z expresses a greater willingness to commit digital fraud than any other generation. In this article, we explore younger generations’ attitudes toward fraud and highlight some of the most common schemes targeted at them. We’ll examine why young people become victims and perpetrators, detail strategies for cases that involve younger people and provide methods to educate younger generations about fraud.

Susceptibility to fraud and the importance of education

Younger adults’ perception of fraud may place them at greater risk of being victimized. Amy Nofziger, CFE, director of fraud victim support at AARP, explains that many young people think of fraud as something that happens to others. “People tend to ignore issues they don’t perceive as relevant to their own lives,” she says. “This mindset needs to change, not just for younger people but for everyone. We must ensure they understand that fraud is a real and relevant threat.”

Shaneeza Hasnani, a senior at John Jay College majoring in fraud examination and financial forensics and a recipient of the ACFE Foundation’s 2024–2025 Ritchie-Jennings Memorial Scholarship, tells Fraud Magazine about some of the scams that have affected her Gen Z peers. Popular scams include phishing, spoofing (disguising an unknown or unauthorized source of communication or data as being known and trusted), fake social media ads, fraudulent dating profiles, or scams related to student loans or scholarships. “Gen Z, including myself, spends a significant amount of time on our phones, and scammers exploit that,” she tells Fraud Magazine. “Gen Z’s deep involvement in digital spaces makes us more accessible, and unfortunately, more susceptible to fraud.”

When it comes to educating future generations of accountants about their fraud risk, Sharona Pickering, CFE, lecturer at Stanmore College in the U.K., and a millennial, has a straightforward message: “Anyone can become a victim of fraud.”

Pickering says that when she asks her students about their fraud risk, they typically respond that they “don’t have the kind of funds that scammers would want.” She emphasizes that everyone must be vigilant about fraud. To drive home her point, she shares her experience with fraud on Facebook Marketplace with them.

Last year, Pickering listed used baby products for sale on the platform and received instant interest from multiple potential buyers for the two most expensive products: a car seat and a stroller. As she explains, many of them used the same line in their messages, making it “obvious they were scammers.” Another prospective customer offered to buy the items on the spot using a PayPal business account — just as soon as Pickering provided her email address. The urgency with which the prospective buyer pressured Pickering raised red flags, but her eagerness to sell the used products overrode her skepticism, and she shared her email address with the scammer. She then received an email from the fraudster claiming she’d received triple the amount in error and asking her to upgrade her PayPal account and return the excess money.

At that point, Pickering’s Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) training kicked in. She says the email address domain “didn’t seem legit,” giving her pause. She decided not to respond to the email and avoided becoming the victim of a scam. Pickering says she felt “ashamed” of her close call with fraud, but she “remembered why I became an ACFE mentor,” and decided to share her story to prevent others from having a similar experience.

Sextortion scams claim lives

Nofziger oversees the AARP’s Fraud Watch Network Helpline (877-908-3360), which is available to everyone regardless of age or membership status. The helpline handles approximately 400 calls daily from victims of fraud. Many of the calls come from people younger than 50, according to Nofziger. “We hear stories of young adults being victimized on gaming platforms, social media, via text message, in person and over the phone,” she tells Fraud Magazine.

According to Nofziger, a common scam among young adults who call AARP’s Fraud Watch Network Helpline involves sextortion, the practice of extorting money or sexual favors from someone by threatening to reveal evidence of their sexual activity. She explains that a typical sextortion scenario might involve a young adult engaging in a flirtatious conversation with someone pretending to be their peer. The scammer might send a naked picture first and then ask for one in return. Then they use the photo from the target as blackmail, demanding money and threatening to post the picture online, or send it to the target’s school or workplace.

Robert M., a retail worker in Brooklyn, New York, fell into a scammer’s snare in 2016 on the dating app Hinge. He was 19 at the time. As he was perusing profiles, a nude photo of a girl appeared. Robert then gave his phone number to the girl. Soon after, he received a phone call from a man claiming to be the girl’s father. The man demanded that Robert buy gift cards and provide the redemption codes. If he didn’t comply, the blackmailer threatened to have him arrested for looking at nude photos of his underage daughter. Robert purchased and provided the scammer with $250 worth of gift cards before confiding in his mother, Maria M., about the pressure he was under from the scammer.

“He was so afraid to tell us, but the demand for money just kept coming. We [Maria and her husband] sat him down, explained it was a scam and that nothing would happen to him. We told him to ignore this person. He did; it stopped. But I’ve never forgotten how stressful that was and how afraid he was of the situation and being afraid to tell us,” recalls Maria, an associate ACFE member, who’s assistant vice president of Global Services at the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

Robert says he worried that he’d leave a stain on his family at the time, adding that he “felt relief” and embarrassment once he realized the ordeal was a scam. The experience left a lasting impression on him. “Online, you need to always be wary of who you interact with. This mindset has helped me be honest and on guard when I meet new people while also just avoiding dating apps and similar sites,” he tells Fraud Magazine. He’s hopeful that his story is a cautionary tale for other young adults. “No one should have to experience this. The stress and anxiety I felt was eating me alive every day,” says Robert.

Nofziger, the mother of two sons ages 16 and 20, says the devastation that sextortion scams cause can leave young people feeling as though they have no way out. In the fall of 2024, she attended a conference where she heard the gut-wrenching account of a father whose son had died by suicide after falling for a sextortion scam. “Right from the conference center in the middle of the talk I texted both my boys, my nephews and my friends, reminding them about this particular scam,” says Nofziger.

No problem is unsolvable. No naked picture is worth a life.

The earth-shattering repercussions of the sexual exploitation of adolescents have made international headlines. Last year, 17-year-old Jordan DeMay died by suicide after being targeted in a sexploitation scam by Nigerian brothers Samuel Ogoshi, age 24, and Samson Ogoshi, age 21. The Michigan teenager responded to a friend request on Instagram from the brothers, who pretended to be a flirtatious teenage girl. They enticed DeMay into sending explicit images of himself and then blackmailed him, demanding hundreds of dollars and threatening to post the compromising photos online.

After giving the brothers as much money as he could, DeMay warned the scammers that he’d take his life if they disseminated the photos. The criminals replied: “Good … Do that fast — or I’ll make you do it.” DeMay died within hours of the initial exchange.

The Ogoshi brothers received a U.S. prison sentence of 17 years and six months. In April they pleaded guilty to conspiring to sexually exploit teenage boys in Michigan and throughout the U.S. The men targeted 38 other U.S. victims, 13 of whom were minors. That same month two other Nigerian men were arrested following an alleged sextortion attempt targeting a teenage boy from Australia who died by suicide. In another case, two other men in Nigeria are on trial for sextortion scams that preceded the suicides of a 15-year-old boy in the U.S. and a 14-year-old in Canada. Scammers in Nigeria are also implicated in the case of 16-year-old Murray Dowey, of Scotland, who died by suicide in 2023. “As a mom, I will continue to talk about this scam with my boys and others until my last breath,” Nofziger tells Fraud Magazine. “It’s heartbreaking that people are losing their lives over this.” (See “A fraud-fighting parent’s perspective” at the end of this article.)

Stumbling into fraud

Catherine Mustico, CFE, managing director of Fundamental Compliance Consulting, LLC, describes herself as a “very early millennial.” A former FINRA examiner, Mustico now owns her own firm, providing compliance consulting and expert-witness analysis. In her experience, she’s noticed a trend of younger people aiding and abetting (sometimes unintentionally) scams targeting older adults.

For example, when working with a client last year, Mustico reviewed the case of a 93-year-old who’d been the victim of an imposter scam. He received a call from someone claiming to be from his brokerage firm and offering to help him fix his computer’s security system. After being pressured to furnish the imposter with remote access to his computer, the man lost $750,000 from his brokerage account. The imposter drained the account by initiating multiple wire transfers to third-party limited liability corporations (LLC). During her review, Mustico identified a 26-year-old woman serving as CEO of one of the LLCs involved. “Not to say that young people can't be entrepreneurs, certainly, but I was just trying to understand what this business is,” Mustico said. “How did this money end up in her account?”

Mustico contacted the CEO and learned that she’d responded to a LinkedIn job ad seeking a cryptocurrency trader. “And she didn’t really have a great explanation as to what her job role was or what she thought it was,” Mustico adds. “It ended up being that she opened a company so that she could receive investor funds and then conduct ‘trades in crypto,’ and then wire that money in, take a percentage of it and wire it out.”

Mustico says she realized the 26-year-old woman had likely been the victim of an employment scam and had unwittingly acted as a money mule (someone whose bank account is used by criminals to transfer money that came from victims of fraud). The young woman turned over all information to the FBI.

This type of scheme isn’t uncommon. In the U.K., fraud prevention nonprofit Cifas received more than 19,000 reports of money-mule cases — an 11% increase — in its National Fraud Database in the first half of 2024. One of the tactics fraudsters used to lure young people involved creating and posting fake job ads that targeted students. Those who inquired were asked to provide their bank details.

Employment scams are hitting younger people at an alarming rate in the U.S., as well. According to the BBB’s fraud prevention and reporting platform, Scam Tracker Report, employment scams accounted for 29.9% of all scams reported by 18- to 24-year-olds in 2023. People in this age group reported a median loss of $1,819 due to employment scams. Indeed and LinkedIn were the most-reported platforms where victims engaged with scammers. In 2023, the FTC posted a consumer alert to warn that scammers impersonating recruiters at legitimate companies were luring eager job candidates to apply for fake positions on LinkedIn, Indeed and other job search sites. After offering the job, scammers pressure job seekers for money or personal information. Common schemes involve sending the “new hire” an invoice for office equipment with a promise of reimbursement that never comes to fruition or a request for sensitive personal information, such as a government identification number or bank account number, that’s simply a ruse for identity theft.

Mustico says another scam affecting people in their 30s and early 40s entails inadvertently participating in a securities pump-and-dump scheme. In this type of fraud, false or misleading statements about a company’s stock are used to entice investors to purchase it, causing the price to rise. After pumping up the stock, fraudsters then sell their own holdings of the stock, dumping shares into the market. Investors lose their money when the price of the stock plummets.

According to Mustico, young, naive investors often stumble onto these schemes when they join online trading groups. “It’s easier if you have somebody telling you when to buy and sell. Then they start going into these platforms where the penny stocks are super easy to get into for a couple dollars, and then they’re told to buy it repeatedly and then told when they should sell it,” Mustico explains. “That day does not come. The investor ends up being told to hold it and waiting for the instruction to sell, but not before the scammer has dumped the stock and tanked the price. The investor loses every time.”

Cryptocurrency scams and investment scams are hitting 18- to 24-year-olds hard. According to the BBB’s Scam Tracker, 60% reported a monetary loss due to cryptocurrency scams, and 67.5% reported a loss due to investment scams in 2023. This age group experienced a median loss of $1,360 from investment scams and $1,819 from cryptocurrency scams. When examining what makes younger people particularly vulnerable to scams, Nofziger says fraudsters work from the same playbook regardless of a target’s age: They exploit emotions to bypass logical defenses.

“Criminals are constantly adapting and learning about their victims’ values and vulnerabilities. For younger people, the fear of missing out [FOMO] might be exploited through promises of becoming a social media influencer or accessing exclusive opportunities. For older adults, FOMO might be triggered by offers to join a secret investment club because they need to play catch-up with their retirement or want to leave some money for their grandkids,” she says.

Challenges to investigating the millennial mind

When trying to understand and relate to victims, suspects or witnesses of fraud who are Gen Z and millennials, licensed digital forensics examiner Derek Ellington, CFE, PI, DFI, says it helps to contrast “digital immigrants” with “digital natives.”

“The older generations had to learn how to use technology. Kids today, they’ve always had technology,” he explains, adding that they live in an environment characterized by “persistent immersive technology.” In other words, “they’re always connected. Their technology is ingrained into their personality. It’s part of who they are.”

A decade ago, Ellington began studying how younger generations’ use of technology affects their default sense of self. He presented an ACFE webinar titled Investigating the Millennial Mind. His work investigating children, teens and millennials as victims, suspects or witnesses poses unique challenges. For starters, they communicate over several different platforms — Discord, Reddit, TikTok, Snapchat, Telegram, Signal and Kick to name a few. And they use specific platforms for various peer groups. “The problem is if you’re only looking at one or two communication systems, you might be missing huge parts of the picture,” Ellington tells Fraud Magazine.

Compounding the challenges investigators face, younger people are more likely to communicate using multiple devices, which they swap out frequently. “One problem is when I look at a younger person’s phone, maybe it’s a year’s worth of data because they just keep getting a new device. When you’re working with younger people, there’s not that same sense of preserving their data, keeping a record, storing information,” Ellington explains.

In cases of exploitation or human trafficking, he says children and adolescents who are lonely, marginalized or outcasts are particularly susceptible. Although technology allows them to find communities online, it also makes them vulnerable to predators.

“The relationships that kids make through playing online video games, for example, can be just as strong and influential as the relationships that they make through church, school and sports. It can be very easy for a predator to create a deep relationship. The victims open themselves up, provide pictures and images, intimate details about themselves. That’s exactly what predators can exploit,” Ellington says.

Once that intense bond has formed, he adds that it can be difficult for young victims to realize they’re the targets of elaborate frauds. “They’ll be victimized and not accept that they’re the victim,” further complicating the investigation, Ellington says.

Combing through financial records, the “holy grail” of information for CFEs according to Ellington, is especially difficult when investigating younger victims, suspects or witnesses. Older people use credit cards, debit cards and bank statements, but younger people are more likely to use digital payment apps like Venmo, Zelle or Cash App, making transactions difficult to trace.

“There are so many ways that value can be transferred from one user to another, often without a clear categorization of the transaction even if the underlying records are available,” explains Ellington. “Unlike direct payments to merchants, user-to-user app payments may be hard, if not impossible, to determine what the transaction was for. This can make it a lot harder to ‘follow the money’ when investigating fraud, scams and even human trafficking.”

One practical way fraud examiners can respond to these challenges entails enlisting the help of technology. In his work, Ellington uses AI tools to categorize images and text messages and to give him a jump-start transcribing surveillance recordings, voicemails and other types of speech recordings. He clarifies that no AI tool is a substitute for the investigator’s own analysis.

Detached, disillusioned and dabbling in fraud

Younger generations are falling for fraud at higher rates than older adults, but they’re also more likely to be the perpetrators of fraud. Survey data released in 2023 by anti-fraud platform Sift indicates that 42% of Gen Zers admit to engaging in first-party fraud (aka “friendly fraud”), which involves receiving a purchase then disputing the transaction. Another fraudulent activity trending among younger generations is “wardrobing,” which involves buying an item of clothing, wearing it and returning it to the store. A survey conducted by returns management company Optoro shows that 40% of 18- to 29-year-olds participate in this type of fraud.

According to the index report conducted by Sift, the percentage of consumers who admitted they were willing to commit fraud was highest (42%) in Gen Z than for any other generation. Millennials were the next highest at 22%, with Gen X at 10% and baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) at 5%. Reasons for the significant generational differences posited in articles by Fortune and Payments Journal include the amount of time that younger generations spend online and the widespread detachment they feel from merchants and large businesses.

Ellington theorizes why an increased use of technology can lead to disconnection with fraudulent activity. “I think what we see with younger generations’ technology adoption is the belief that anything I can do in the privacy of my home can’t be illegal,” he tells Fraud Magazine. “The example would be engaging in copyright violations through downloading music and movies. Somehow, they think that things they can do in front of a computer are not a ‘real’ crime.”

Hasnani tells Fraud Magazine that a perceived unfairness inherent in reigning systems may contribute to young peoples’ lax attitude toward committing fraud. “There’s a strong disillusionment among younger people about systemic fairness, which sometimes leads to justifying bending the rules if they feel the system itself is flawed,” says Hasnani. “This makes our attitude toward fraud complex and situational, often shaped by whether we feel the system deserves our trust.”

The trend to justify consumer fraud extends to the insurance world. A study by Verisk and the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud reports that 75% of people younger than 45 consider insurance fraud to be a crime, in contrast to older adults who responded with a higher majority at 87-96%. The survey findings also show that more than 30% of 25- to 34-year-olds indicated that they “definitely would” submit a fraudulent property damage claim.

Vera Senel, CFE, is a 24-year-old who specializes in fraud prevention and compliance advisory services at a large international financial consulting company in Turkey. As a Turkish Canadian, she tells Fraud Magazine that she’s observed the attitudes that her fellow Gen Zers demonstrate toward fraud in both Turkey and North America. “In Turkey, younger generations have a slightly more casual attitude toward certain types of fraud,” says Senel. “Uninformed individuals might view small-scale fraud or tax evasion as a victimless crime or a necessary evil due to the economic pressures that come with hyperinflation in recent years.”

Mustico also notes the pressures young people face, especially when entering the job market with student loans and expenses and trying out their first corporate job with remote working conditions. Mustico tells Fraud Magazine that these conditions can cause young people to shrug off red flags. “They don’t know who to ask if something doesn’t look right and don’t want to risk not taking a job opportunity or the chance to make money. Not when student loans are coming due and failure to make payments might impact a cosigner’s credit,” says Mustico.

Pushing back against the glamorization of fraud

In addition to the trend among young people to dabble in fraud is a sensationalizing of fraudsters who’ve found fame. Convicted millennial con artists Anna Delvey and Belle Gibson gained widespread media attention and inspired recent American and Australian television drama series. The Forbes “30 under 30” list has featured a surprising number of up-and-coming young entrepreneurs, including FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who’ve since faced white-collar criminal charges. (See “(In)famous young fraudsters” at the end of this article.)

However, not every young adult agrees with their peers’ glamorization of fraud. SaifAli Chatriwala, CFE, director of finance and investments at Avatar Investments, LP, and a millennial, spoke with Fraud Magazine about the notoriety of well-known young con artists. “Honestly, I think it’s crazy,” says Chatriwala.

Anna Delvey got a whole Netflix show, and it felt less like a warning about her delusions and more like an encouragement to follow in her footsteps.

Chatriwala recalls the praise Bankman-Fried initially received for being a genius in the crypto world. “I really feel like the media needs to take a more balanced approach when covering these kinds of cases,” says Chatriwala. “It’s just frustrating to see these people glamorized without any real accountability. It feels like we’re letting them off the hook and turning them into these larger-than-life characters instead of focusing on the damage they caused.”

Senel explains to Fraud Magazine that while fraudsters in Turkey aren’t necessarily perceived as celebrities, they can gain notoriety if a scheme is sensationalized in the media, similar to North America. “This fascination with fraud and fraudsters is probably due to a general interest Gen Z has in ‘true crime’ and is more of a generational difference than a regional one,” says Senel.

A poll conducted by YouGov in June 2024 found that 57% of Americans claim to consume true-crime content, the majority of which were adults younger than 65. The genre that showcases real-world crimes has been especially prevalent in podcasts and television series, with Gen Z in particular dedicating 4.6 hours per week to true-crime consumption, according to Inside Radio.

Hasnani agrees that the notoriety around figures including Delvey and Gibson raises questions about society’s fascination with crime and can unintentionally glamorize fraud. She tells Fraud Magazine that some of her peers view them as cautionary tales, while others are tempted to see their actions as appealing and shortcuts to wealth and status. “From a fraud examiner’s perspective, this glamorization is concerning,” says Hasnani. “It underscores the need for ethics and integrity, reminding us that real success is built on trust and transparency, not on deception.”

She says that she watched the Anna Delvey series twice and was fascinated by how Delvey manipulated the system. “I was intrigued by how she was able to deceive so many people, including top banks and influential figures, without anyone questioning it until much later,” says Hasnani. “Her ability to fool such powerful institutions made many of us question the effectiveness of the systems we rely on.”

Educating future generations

Senel suggests that methods for educating younger generations should be interactive, relatable and lean into their tech-driven tendencies. “Social media is the most powerful tool we have when it comes to raising awareness about fraud,” says Senel. “Platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube are ideal for sharing short, impactful content about fraud risks and preventive measures. Collaborating with influencers who resonate with a large Gen Z audience can also be helpful in spreading the message.”

Senel tells Fraud Magazine that gamification could also be an effective tool. “Developing games or simulations that imitate fraud scenarios can engage young people while also teaching them to recognize warning signs,” says Senel.

Experian offers practical advice for how young people can avoid scams, including questioning text messages claiming to be from the federal government or other large companies and avoiding sending money through wire transfers and gift cards. Scams can also be reported to the BBB’s Scam Tracker and the FTC.

Hasnani says she believes that educating young people about the dangers of fraud needs to be accompanied by encouraging ethics and accountability. “While it’s essential for Gen Z to understand the digital landscape, we also need to grasp the moral implications of fraud,” she tells Fraud Magazine. “Series about figures like Anna Delvey need to be framed as cautionary tales, not as aspirational stories.”

She explains that engaging Gen Z effectively might involve leveraging platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where her peers are most active. “The harsh reality is that Gen Z has a short attention span, and traditional media like YouTube videos or articles may not have the same impact,” says Hasnani. “Gen Z values authenticity, and CFEs sharing real-world stories about fraud prevention and positive reform within the system would resonate deeply.”

For a generation that feels disillusioned with the status quo, showing that ethical success and meaningful change are possible could be far more impactful than abstract warnings alone.

Mustico asserts that younger generations need to develop a healthy amount of skepticism. She notes the tendency to distrust certain information and that it’s difficult for young people to know what to trust. To combat this, she stresses the need to verify information through multiple sources. “Don’t give others the opportunity to victimize you by accepting blind advice and just wanting someone to tell you what to do or how to make quick money,” says Mustico.

She advises young people to distance themselves emotionally from something so they can logically assess it and determine whether something is legitimate. “Listen to the spidey-sense [intuition] that says something is wrong and you know it,” she says, alluding to the ability to detect danger before it happens characteristic of the Marvel Comics superhero Spider-Man.

Mustico explains that a key tactic fraudsters use is manipulating victims to act fast. “It’s OK to miss an opportunity,” she says. “Younger people need to learn to question that and realize that pressure being put on them is a red flag.”

What she sees as timeless advice is that while the game’s always changing, it’s important to slow down and truly evaluate a situation. “Think about what you want to do versus is this a smart move,” Mustico says.

Using their power for good in the fight against fraud

Chatriwala thinks that younger generations’ comfort with technology provides them with advantages. “Even if we don’t have formal fraud training, we’re naturally more skeptical because we’ve grown up understanding how things like AI work, how easily media can be faked and what types of scams are going around,” he tells Fraud Magazine. “That helps us spot fraud and imposters more easily.”

However, Chatriwala admits that this comfort with technology can also make committing fraud easier and blur the lines of what’s considered ethical. “Our comfort with tech is both a strength and a challenge,” says Chatriwala. “It helps protect us, but it can also make fraud feel more accessible or less serious. It’s all about making sure we use our knowledge in a responsible way.”

As a Gen Z anti-fraud professional, Senel says her generation’s intrinsic understanding of technology can only benefit the anti-fraud industry. “I believe that Gen Z’s role in fraud prevention is an important topic that deserves attention because criminal behavior and counteractive measures change with social and technological developments,” says Senel. “Gen Z was born into the digital world and thus has an intuitive understanding of technology and online platforms. With the role of technology increasing in both our personal and professional lives, Gen Z’s tech-savviness, adaptability and knowledge of online platforms and tools make them skilled at spotting fraudulent activity.”

Senel recognizes the challenges that come with Gen Z’s technological strengths. She says that although her generation effectively uses technology to make their lives easier and work more efficiently, they’re also vulnerable to fraud schemes that exploit technology through social engineering and AI. “For Gen Z, it’s important to stay informed and be proactive, from enabling two-factor authentication, and using encrypted communication tools, to staying updated on emerging fraud schemes and preventive measures,” says Senel.

According to Senel, younger generations also demonstrate strength in the ways that some use their online communities in response to being a victim of fraud. “I have friends from both Canada and Turkey who were scammed and immediately following the realization that they were a victim of fraud, they took to social media to ‘cancel’ the business and inform other people so they wouldn’t also be victimized,” she tells Fraud Magazine. “In the cases that I was able to observe through my peers, social media seems to be the go-to place to seek justice and raise awareness.”

Nofziger confirms how younger generations support one another on social media. “I’ve seen younger individuals more open about their experiences and more likely to share their victimization with their social network,” she says. “This openness can lead to better emotional support and collective anger toward the scammer: ‘I can’t believe that person did that to you and lied to you.’ They rally around the victim and empathize.”

Nofziger tells Fraud Magazine that regardless of age, the emotional toll of being scammed can be severe. She stresses that fraud victims of all ages need access to resources and support to help them recover emotionally and financially. Both younger and older victims can experience shame, guilt and distress. She believes it’s important to change language that tends to blame victims when it comes to fraud. “I have faith the younger generation will be leaders in this endeavor,” says Nofziger.

Anna Brahce is assistant editor of Fraud Magazine. Contact her at abrahce@ACFE.com.

Crystal Zuzek is assistant editor of Fraud Magazine. Contact her at czuzek@ACFE.com. 

(In)famous young fraudsters

Bad influence

Danielle Miller, 33

While the coronavirus pandemic ravaged millions around the globe, millennial social media influencer Danielle Miller was on top of the world. Her 34,000+ Instagram followers lived vicariously through her as she flaunted her luxury Miami apartment, stays at high-end hotels and flights on private jets. But her life of luxury came to an abrupt halt in 2021. As she recovered from buttock augmentation surgery in her Miami apartment, federal agents arrested her for perpetrating a massive fraud against the U.S. federal government. That didn’t deter her from continuing to display her lifestyle of excess on social media even as she awaited trial.

From 2020 to 2021, the self-described con artist used stolen identities and fake business names to obtain $1.5 million in pandemic-related relief via Economic Injury Disaster Loan funds, as well as Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and other unemployment benefits. Her scam entailed using stolen identities, some of which came from a hacked Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles database, to obtain at least 10 Small Business Administration loans. She accessed stolen personal information using Telegram, a cloud-based social media and instant messaging service.

Miller pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft in March 2023. In September 2023, a Massachusetts district court judge sentenced her to five years in prison and three years of supervised release. She must also pay restitution.

Miller’s notoriety garnered her a portrayal on Hulu’s 2023 miniseries “The Age of Influence.” Episode one, titled “XOXO, Grifter Girl,” chronicles Miller’s time as convicted con artist Anna Sorokin’s (aka Anna Delvey) roommate in prison at Rikers Island in 2019. Miller served time there for her involvement in an earlier credit card scam.

Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy provided an apt summary of Miller’s rise and fall in a 2023 press release: “Ms. Miller isn’t an influencer; she is a convicted felon. … Ms. Miller relied on fraud to fund a lavish lifestyle of private jets, luxury apartments and other accoutrements of wealth. Today’s sentencing should make it crystal clear that curating a high-society social media presence on the backs of hardworking taxpayers is a path to prison, not fleeting fame."

Famously faking it

Anna Sorokin, 34

At just 28 years old, Anna Sorokin, aka Anna Delvey, was found guilty of second-degree grand larceny, theft and first-degree attempted grand larceny for cheating banks, hotels and wealthy New Yorkers out of $275,000. Arrested in 2017 and convicted in 2019, her elaborate con entailed posing as a German heiress with a $67 million trust fund. In reality, she came from a middle-class Russian family. She faked financial documents and forged identities to apply for loans, run up debts and secure a landmark New York building for a private arts club.

Three years into serving a 12-year prison sentence, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained Sorokin in 2021 for overstaying her visa. In 2022, ICE released her to home confinement (pending a deportation hearing) after she posted a $10,000 bond.

Her fraudulent activities culminated in a failed attempt to obtain a $22 million loan for her arts club project, estimated to cost up to $40 million. She also convinced her friend Rachel DeLoache Williams to pay $60,000 for a luxury trip to Morocco, charged a bank for a $100,000 loan, and ran up tabs at hotels and restaurants. Williams wrote a tell-all, “My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress,” about how Sorokin took advantage of her.

Despite her criminal convictions, Sorokin has thrust herself into the media spotlight. In 2022, actress Julia Garner portrayed the grifter in the Netflix drama “Inventing Anna.” Using her alias of Delvey, last year she competed on the U.S. TV show “Dancing with the Stars” while under house arrest and sporting an ankle monitor. She was one of the first to be voted off the show. She also launched a podcast, “The Anna Delvey Show,” in 2023 in an effort to reform her tarnished public image. She posted nine episodes while on house arrest.

In a 2023 Associated Press interview, Sorokin described her time in prison as a “transformative experience,” explaining that she’s changed since 2017. “It’s been five years, a bit more than five years since I got arrested. So, I just like — I changed. I learned so much,” she said.

The cancer con queen

Belle Gibson, 33

Belle Gibson, a wellness influencer in Australia, grew a major following on social media by claiming to cure her cancer through diet. An Elle article reports that Gibson first lied about having a brain tumor in 2009. She said she’d been told she only had four months to live and began promoting healthy eating, claiming her diet was curing her. By 2013 she had 300,000 followers. She launched a mobile app and published a cookbook titled “The Whole Pantry,” which was initially set to be loaded on the Apple Watch before the truth behind her lies unfolded.

Gibson’s fraud became apparent when charities to which she claimed to have been making donations revealed they never received her funds. According to media investigators from The Sydney Morning Herald, Gibson publicly claimed she was giving away 25% of her company’s profits. She hosted a fundraiser in 2013, and said she’d given $300,000 in donations. Her health claims proved fraudulent as well. According to Elle, in a 60 Minutes interview in 2015, Gibson admitted she didn’t have a brain tumor and stated that her doctor had tricked her into thinking she did by showing her false scans.

Further investigations revealed that Gibson raised almost $1 million from her deception. The Australian Federal Court found her guilty of violating five counts of consumer law, and she was fined $410,000. Gibson reportedly lives in Melbourne, and her fame still lives on. Netflix will be releasing a series about her life titled “Apple Cider Vinegar” set to come out later this year.

Crash of the crypto empire

Sam Bankman-Fried, 32

Thirty-two-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried received one of the longest imposed sentences for a white-collar crime in years, according to The New York Times. Bankman-Fried's customers lost $8 billion when his cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX imploded in 2022; he was subsequently convicted of seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.

Bankman-Fried became well-known for his rumpled clothes, nerdy personality and showcasing his generosity as one of the youngest billionaires. FTX — worth $30 billion — had been one of the largest crypto marketplaces. When a run on deposits in 2022 exposed the major hole in FTX’s accounts, Bankman-Fried was soon arrested and charged with stealing from customers to finance his political contributions, donations to charity and investments.

The crypto empire further crumbled as Bankman-Fried’s closest colleagues pleaded guilty to fraud charges. Though Bankman-Fried is appealing his conviction, he’s admitted to making bad decisions. “At the end of the day, my useful life is probably over now,” The New York Times reported Bankman-Fried saying as he faces a 25-year prison sentence.

A fraud-fighting parent’s perspective

Because Amy Nofziger, CFE, director of fraud victim support at AARP, has a front-row seat to the destructive nature of fraud on victims, their families and their communities, she regularly discusses the latest news about fraud and scams with her two children. “Even though criminals often target people who have more money, they won’t hesitate to steal even a small amount from teens. Plus, with the extensive access they have to young adults through their devices, it’s a real threat,” she says.

Nofziger often discusses fraud prevention with them. “When I educate my kids about fraud, I do it in a conversational manner, not in a way that feels like a lecture,” she explains, adding that she likes to present them with role-playing scenarios. “For example, I might ask, ‘What would you do if someone told you that you could make money in crypto if you invest with them?’ By placing them in these hypothetical situations, they can better understand and retain the key messages.”

For parents who feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of scams targeting their children, Nofziger encourages them to try her role-playing strategy. She says this approach helps adolescents and young adults think critically and recognize emotional triggers in a safe environment. Teaching adolescents and young adults to identify and understand their emotional responses while encouraging them to practice staying calm in high-pressure situations can be helpful, as well. She often advises panicked helpline callers to physically remove themselves from the situation. “By removing yourself from the actual situation, you can get out of the emotional brain and move back into the logical brain.”