Mass-Marketing Fraud: A Threat Assessment

Abstract

Mass-marketing fraud is a term increasingly used around the world to refer to fraud schemes that use mass-communications media – including telephones, the Internet, mass mailings, television, radio, and even personal contact – to contact, solicit, and obtain money, funds, or other items of value from multiple victims in one or more jurisdictions. Although law enforcement and regulatory authorities often use a variety of names to refer to the phenomenon – including “advance-fee fraud,” “419 fraud,” “Internet fraud,” and “telemarketing fraud” – the growing profusion of labels for these fraud schemes tends to obscure the fact that such schemes often are conducted using multiple communications channels to identify and contact victims, as well as identical or highly similar methods of operation that are not dependent on a single communications medium. Today, mass-marketing fraud schemes operate from, and increasingly seek to target victims in, numerous countries on multiple continents. Moreover, such schemes are aware and take advantage of differences between countries in legislative authorities prohibiting such schemes. As a consequence, mass-marketing fraud has become a substantial concern for law enforcement in several regions of the world. The International Mass-Marketing Fraud Working Group (IMMFWG) prepared this threat assessment to provide governments and the public with a current assessment of the nature and scope of the threat that mass-marketing fraud poses around the world. The IMMFWG, which was established in September 2007, consists of law enforcement, regulatory, and consumer protection agencies from seven countries, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as Europol. The IMMFWG seeks to facilitate the multinational exchange of information and intelligence, the coordination of cross-border operations to detect, disrupt, and apprehend mass-marketing fraud, and the enhancement of public-awareness and public-education measures concerning international mass-marketing fraud schemes. The information and analysis in this assessment is current through May 2010, and are derived principally from public and non-public law enforcement and non-law enforcement sources in Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and the United States.