Shuffle Up and Deal: Estimating the Size and Sustainability of Online Fraud Networks

• In Event: Understanding Online Fraud and Theft Using Unique Data Sources

Abstract

The Internet has enabled rapid growth in global commerce, with millions of financial transactions conducted online each day. But these largely unregulated, covert transactions have also complicated the audit process. This has provided new opportunities for criminals to obscure the proceeds of crime, a process referred to as money laundering. To address issues concerning money laundering and associated fraud in online environments, the scope of the problem, as well as the behaviours that sustain it, must first be identified. The current study uses capture-recapture methodologies to estimate the population of fraudsters laundering the proceeds of crime through online convergence settings known as carding forums and survival analysis to examine factors that determine longer 'survival' in their criminal careers. Findings indicate that these populations are unstable and that criminal careers are short-lived, with a small proportion of fraudsters, who benefit from lucrative opportunity structures, experiencing longer survival.

Authors

• Mitch Macdonald, Simon Fraser University

• Richard Frank, Simon Fraser University