#7 Wealth to welfare: vanishing fortunes

When finance professionals and stockbrokers lose the battle against fraud, scams and mule bank accounts, what has to change? Australia's banking system is riddled with mules willing to rent or sell their bank account for as little as $50. Predators at the top of the crime chain exploit legal loopholes in AUSTRAC regulations, electronic payments, and bank policies to stay ahead of the law and target Australia's wealthiest people. This episode explores the multi-million dollar losses some Australians face when trying to open a term deposit or invest their retirement money. Many of us falsely believe older people lose money because they are grappling with how to use technology, but that ship sailed long ago. Older Australians are targeted for their assets in sophisticated social engineering rackets that are getting better, bigger and bolder as Artificial Intelligence, poor banking and telco security and scam factories enable it. We've investigated cases where people have been defrauded by as much as $3 million to $6 million trying to transact through Australia's banking and payments system.There are even fraud universities where the old scammers and malware hackers from the 1990s and 2000s are educating a new technical elite on how to create new scams, shams and frauds that work. With personal information leaked across the web, it's simple for 'spear phishing' to personally target individuals with just the right bait to get you on the hook to lose everything.Older Australians have been the biggest losers in Australia's scam crisis, mostly because they have more money to lose than younger people. Vicious trading scams use deep fakes to lure people in with a social media ad. When the regulators close them down, they simply re-badge the front end with a fancy new name and start up under a new name and impersonate a new celebrity, financial expert or even Prime Ministers.In this episode: 0:01 - Finance professionals and system failure. Who foots the bill? 0:40 - Ken Gamble: This is the most profitable crime on Earth - high profit, low risk and no Australian Government is willing to chase the overseas gangs responsible. 1:27 - Kim and Kessada Sawyer: Lost $2.5 million 2:17 - The scams targeting Australians: Fake term deposits, AI trading, romance cons. 3:13 - Sylvia Chou: Chartered accountant loses $2.6 million: Westpac & NAB chase her for debt. 5:16 - Australian Banking Association: Scams don't come from banks. Alrighty, then 6:42 - Banks return money to scammers! How legal loopholes let criminals win. 7:51 - Cyber expert Simon Smith: There's NO protection. If you transfer money, its gone. 9:23 - Ken Gamble: Banks are hiding to avoid liability. 12:47 - Investment scams: Fake trading platforms, AI-generated voices, and deepfake Elon Musk ads. 18:43 - Bank limits on crypto too little, too late. ABA claims they reduce fraud, but victims disagree. 20:58 - Gary Meachen: Lost $400,000+ to a fake crypto platform. 22:41 - Fraud University: How scammers are trained like professionals. 23:30 - War and money: From WWII counterfeiting to modern-day financial warfare. 24:38 - Final thoughts: Silence helps scammers win. Exposing what happens is the awareness everyone needs to improve the system