When criminals look trustworthy: The rise of the industrialised impersonation scam

Organised criminal networks are investing heavily in impersonation scams, using AI, psychology and increasingly sophisticated tactics to convince Australians they’re dealing with someone they can trust.

There was a time when scam emails were easy to spot. They arrived riddled with spelling mistakes, promised impossible fortunes and claimed to be from a long-lost prince or lottery official.

Today’s scams are something else entirely.

Across parts of Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, organised criminal syndicates have built sophisticated operations designed to look and sound legitimate. Fake bank branches, police stations, uniforms, professionally scripted call centres and AI-powered tools are all part of an increasingly sophisticated effort to convince victims they are dealing with someone they can trust.

A recent AFP investigation uncovered a Cambodian scam compound that included a fake Australian Federal Police office, AFP logos and detailed scripts used to impersonate officers targeting Australians. Authorities identified around 300 potential Australian victims linked to the operation.

The problem extends well beyond Australia. Earlier this month, INTERPOL announced a global anti-fraud operation across 97 countries that resulted in 5,811 arrests and the interception of US$293m in illicit assets. The operation specifically targeted social engineering scams, including impersonation scams.

“If you think the Nigerian Prince example, you didn’t know the Nigerian prince, right? Today scammers impersonate real banks, they impersonate real law enforcement, they’re impersonating real governments,” says Ben Young, Westpac’s head of fraud prevention.

“The scale of it is so much greater, too. These days we’ve got huge whole townships in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe with entire communities where all they do is run scams.”

The sophistication extends well beyond technology.

Scammers routinely spoof legitimate phone numbers, copy company branding, record hold music, research employees’ names and even stage convincing video calls complete with uniforms and official-looking backdrops.

“They’ll spoof phone numbers, they’ll record hold music, they’ll Google a company and find the names of real people that actually work there,” Young says.

“They do little things, too, for example they often speak with a posh English accent. They’ll set up little signs and backdrops if they’re doing a video call, present their badge number if pretending to be a police officer. A sophisticated act to build trust.”

While artificial intelligence has accelerated the problem, Young says many of the techniques remain surprisingly simple.

“They’ve got high-tech stuff where they use AI to actually impersonate a real person. But scammers also use more low-level ways that build trust as well.”

That trust, rather than technology itself, is often the real target.

One particularly effective tactic is convincing victims they have reached their own conclusion.

“Another trick that scammers use is to give the impression that you made this choice, not them,” Young explains.

He describes fake comparison websites that appear to compare multiple banks offering term deposits.

Even supposedly conservative financial decisions can become vulnerable.

“If you’re just looking for a term deposit… you think of yourself as a very low risk investor,” Young says.

“You probably have your defences down because you don’t see scammers coming.”

The growth of impersonation scams has become one of the defining challenges facing financial institutions. Westpac data shows these are among the top scams the bank’s customers are seeing.

“It’s obviously a hugely technological arms race that we’re in,” Young says.

“At the moment, scams are falling and have fallen for the last year or two. But that was after probably five years of pretty steady and alarming growth. Each week there’s some new AI model that’s even more frightening than the last one. Unfortunately, impersonation scams are here to stay.”

Westpac now uses sophisticated monitoring systems that assess far more than individual transactions, analysing patterns of customer behaviour to identify activity that appears unusual.

“Westpac runs a 24-7 scam detection process that scrutinises not just single transactions, but all the other events that are peripheral to that,” he says.

The bank is also using AI to assist its own fraud and scam specialists during customer conversations. Yet technology alone cannot overcome the emotional pull of many scams.

Romance scams blended with investment fraud can unfold over months before money is ever transferred.

“In these cases, the scammer might have spent months with you, building a relationship, sending you daily messages how much he or she loves you. Your bank only enters the picture at the very last moment, when you’re to make a payment. By then, we’re trying to convince you that someone you’ve come to trust may actually be a scammer,” Young says.

Perhaps the biggest misconception is who becomes a victim.

Older Australians account for a significant proportion of financial losses because they often have larger investments. But younger Australians are being caught just as frequently, albeit in different ways.

“On a pure count basis, young Australians fall for scams just as much – they just fall for different types of scams,” Young says.

“There really is a scam for everyone.”

Marketplace purchases, concert tickets, online shopping and social media transactions have become common entry points.

Young’s advice is simple.

“Go and get the goods in person if you can safely. Don’t pay deposits, don’t pay delivery fees. Pay for the goods when you’ve got them in your hands,” he says.

The lesson, Young says, is that familiar logos, caller ID, uniforms and professional-looking processes are no longer reliable indicators that someone is genuine. Criminals want victims to trust appearances rather than stop and independently verify who they are dealing with.

One of the most unsettling developments is that criminals are increasingly impersonating banks themselves.

“They will call you up and tell you that your accounts have been compromised and that you need to move your money,” Young says.

“We are never ever going to ask you to move money to another account to keep it safe.”

Instead, he encourages customers to end unexpected calls and independently their bank using a trusted number they have sourced publicly – like on a bank’s official website.

“We’re happy for you to hang up on us and say, ‘I’m going to call you back’.”

Ultimately, Young believes overconfidence has become one of the greatest risks.

“Trust me, you don’t see them coming,” he says.

“The level of sophistication to the schemes now is so, so much greater – you’d be wildly overconfident if you think it’s impossible for you to fall for one.”

At a time where trust itself has become the product being manufactured, the safest response may simply be to pause before believing what appears perfectly real.

As technology evolves, so too do the scammers. Westpac is urging Australians to stop, check and protect to stay safe from scammers. To find out more the latest scams and how to stay safe visit Westpac Security Hub .