The Foresight Lab

Where Foresight is 20/20.

Every week, the DigsFact team breaks down one fraud or AML pattern we're seeing in the wild — what it looks like, why your current stack misses it, and what you'd do about it Monday morning. Then you put yourself in the chair: Spot the Fraud, and see how you score against The PreCogs.

This week's issue

The wire they begged you to send

APP scams don't break in — your own customer hands over the money. Here's the behavioral fingerprint that every ID-based control is blind to.

Jun 15, 2026 · Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud
Spot the Fraud
FL-01

A 61-year-old customer initiates a same-day wire from web banking. Every authentication check passes. Your rules engine sees a known customer on a known device. Clear it, or hold it?

Amount$48,250
ChannelWeb banking outbound wire
Customer61, 14-yr relationship, no prior wires
Device/IPher usual laptop, home IP (recognized)
MFApassed
Beneficiary'Hudson Title Escrow LLC' added 9 min ago
Balance after$1,310 (97% sent)
Session14-min dwell, long pauses, 2 branch calls today asking how to wire
Beneficiary acctopened 3 wks ago elsewhere, 4 wires in from 4 unrelated senders this week
Your call?
No noise. One sharp briefing a week.

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The archive

Every briefing, on the record.

Issue 02Jun 22, 2026
Check fraud & mail theft

The check that cleared, then didn't

Check fraud came roaring back — powered by stolen mail, washed checks, and mobile deposit. The window to catch it is measured in hours.

3 min · Spot the FraudRead
Issue 03Jun 29, 2026
Synthetic identity & false positives

The applicant who looked too thin

Synthetic identities hide in thin credit files — so legacy models reject thin files wholesale. That reflex turns away real customers. This week, the trap runs the other way.

3 min · Spot the FraudRead
Issue 04Jul 6, 2026
Money mule networks

Forty friends, one cash-out

Mule accounts don't look like fraud one transaction at a time. They only reveal themselves as a shape — fan-in, then fan-out. You have to see the graph.

3 min · Spot the FraudRead
Issue 05Jul 13, 2026
Account takeover (SIM swap)

The number that wasn't theirs anymore

When a fraudster ports your customer's phone number, your SMS one-time code stops protecting them — and starts protecting the attacker.

3 min · Spot the FraudRead
Issue 06Jul 20, 2026
Business email compromise (BEC)

The invoice with new banking details

One spoofed email changes a vendor's bank account — and your customer's accounts-payable team wires six figures straight to a fraudster.

3 min · Spot the FraudRead
Issue 07Jul 27, 2026
AML structuring & false positives

The deposits that looked like smurfing

Repeated just-under-threshold cash deposits scream structuring — until you remember some businesses are simply cash-heavy. This week, the alert is wrong.

3 min · Spot the FraudRead
Issue 08Aug 3, 2026
Investment ('pig butchering') scams

The slow-burn that empties the whole account

It doesn't start with a wire. It starts with a relationship — weeks of trust, then a 'can't-miss' crypto investment, then everything they have.

3 min · Spot the FraudRead
Issue 09Aug 10, 2026
Card testing & enumeration attacks

A thousand tiny charges before the big one

Before fraudsters spend a stolen card, they test it — thousands of micro-authorizations probing which numbers are live. Caught early, you stop the loss before it starts.

3 min · Spot the FraudRead
Issue 10Aug 17, 2026
Chargeback abuse & false positives

The dispute that wasn't abuse

Serial chargebacks scream 'friendly fraud' — but sometimes the customer is genuinely the victim, and auto-fighting them costs you a loyal one. This week, the dispute is legit.

3 min · Spot the FraudRead
Issue 11Aug 24, 2026
Elder financial exploitation

The helper with the debit card

The most painful fraud often comes from someone the customer trusts — a caregiver, relative, or power of attorney quietly draining the account. The signals are behavioral, not technical.

3 min · Spot the FraudRead
Issue 12Aug 31, 2026
Crypto laundering & sanctions evasion

Laundering at the speed of a blockchain

At the fiat-to-crypto border, launderers structure deposits, hop across chains, and route through risky counterparties to break the trail. Following the flow is the only way to see it.

3 min · Spot the FraudRead