Customer

Legitimate account holders are unwittingly exploited when their accounts are compromised and used to launder funds. Criminals take advantage of the customer’s established transaction history and normal activity patterns by:

• Executing transfers or purchases under the guise of the rightful owner.
• Rapidly modifying account credentials or contact details to maintain unauthorized access.

This exploitation complicates financial institutions' efforts to detect illicit transactions, as the activity appears to align with the customer’s usual behavior.

Criminals use deepfake calls or video chats to impersonate legitimate bank customers, prompting staff to reset passwords, override security settings, or approve high-value disbursements. This impersonation bypasses standard authentication measures, exploiting trust in familiar account holders.

In some instances, genuine superannuation account holders knowingly facilitate fraud by:

• Submitting forged or falsified documents to claim undeserved early disbursements.
• Exploiting their legitimate access privileges to bypass certain red flags, compelling financial institutions to scrutinize even established customer relationships for fraudulent activity.

Personally adopts the altered spelling or full alias, presents the forged (or legitimately re-issued) ID, and opens or updates accounts under that name. The same individual may cycle through multiple near-match variants—especially after each generates a compliance alert—thereby using name alteration as a low-cost, repeatable tactic to keep transacting even when earlier spellings have been flagged.