Welcome back to Fraudology.

Since I’ve been back from SardineCon, I’ve thought about how much faster and cheaper AI is making fraud. That thread runs through basically everything I’m covering today. I’m digging into a new report from Inscribe showing a 4X increase in AI generated documents. I’ll walk through the difference between a document that’s built entirely by AI and one that’s a real document with AI alterations. Because they are not the same problem.

Then we will go deep on a digital arrest scam, and this is the one I really want you to sit with. Frank McKenna has been predicting digital arrests would hit the US for almost a year. I found a first person account from a woman who got a call claiming to be from her local sheriff’s department. What happened to her over the next several hours is genuinely hard to listen to. I think this is one every fraud fighter needs to be able to explain to the people in their own life who aren’t in this industry.

Along the way, I’m covering a case out of Spain where a man was arrested for using deepfakes to get past identify verification checks, a new report on Grok deepfakes, and a study out of UMass on zombie credit cards. Which is a real NFC fraud loophole. It’s a lot but stick with me.

What you’ll hear:

• A quick recap of SardineCon 2026 and why AI was the theme of nearly every conversation I had there
• Inscribe's new fraud report showing a 4X increase in AI generated documents, and why bank statement fraud, fake invoices, and fake pay stubs make up more than half of what they're catching
• The difference between AI generated documents and AI altered ones, and why the altered ones are actually harder to catch
• How synthetic identity fraud and first party fraud both show up in lending fraud, even when the person applying is real
• A case out of Spain where deepfakes almost got a man through identity verification, until a one second glitch gave him away
• A new report on Grok deepfakes and what it means that one platform is tied to the majority of tracked incidents
• A UMass study on zombie credit cards and the NFC fraud loophole that can bring expired cards back to life
• The full, first person story of a digital arrest scam, including the jury duty scam call, someone impersonating law enforcement, a bond scam demand, and a PayPal fraud payment that couldn't be undone

You should listen to this episode if you:

• Want to understand what a digital arrest scam actually sounds like from the inside
• Are in lending, underwriting, or KYC and need to know how bank statement fraud and fake pay stubs are evolving
• Want to know the real difference between synthetic identity fraud and first party fraud
• Have family members who don’t work in fraud and need a real example to help them recognize a jury duty scam or someone impersonating law enforcement
• Are tracking deepfakes and want to know where Grok deepfakes fit into the bigger picture
• Process card not present or in person transactions and haven't heard about the zombie credit card loophole yet