Australia Watchdog Says Money Launderers Ramping Up AI for Scams

Australia’s financial crimes watchdog warned of a heightened threat of money laundering linked to artificial intelligence that has been used by crooks to scale up activities, automate processes and create fake documents.

“Criminals are increasingly using AI as a part of their money laundering toolkit — fabricating identities, forging documents and rapidly disguising the proceeds of scams,” said Brendan Thomas, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre. “In some cases, technology is automating what used to be manual laundering techniques, raising the sophistication and scale of financial crime,” he said as the agency released annual updates to its risk guidelines.