Fraud in digital societies: technological innovations, emerging threats, regulatory tensions, and enforcement challenges

Session Submission Type: Pre-arranged Panel

Abstract

The increasing digitalisation of financial transactions, commerce, and social interactions has transformed the landscape of fraud, creating new vulnerabilities while also offering tools for prevention and detection. This panel explores the diverse dynamics of fraud in digital societies, examining how new technologies both enable increasingly sophisticated fraudulent activities and serve as mechanisms for mitigation and control. It also addresses the tensions between regulatory and institutional responsibilities, as well as the enforcement challenges posed by emerging forms of fraud. The four presentations critically examine these issues through case studies on food fraud, Authorised Push Payment Fraud (APPF), pig butchering fraud, and cryptocurrency investment fraud.

The first study analyses the application of blockchain technology to combat food fraud, questioning its effectiveness in addressing systemic vulnerabilities within supply chains. The second study examines the dual role of artificial intelligence in fraud—both as a facilitator of large-scale, automated deception and as a crucial tool in fraud prevention and detection. The third paper explores how regulatory professionals navigate tensions between their personal and professional identities while implementing new APPF liability regulations, using phenomenological methods to examine their perceptions of victim blameworthiness and institutional responsibility. The final paper situates romance scams and cryptocurrency investment fraud within a national security context, uncovering the transnational structures and illicit financial flows that enable these operations.

Together, these contributions provide a criminological perspective on the evolving landscape of fraud in digital societies, highlighting the complexities of governance and enforcement in an increasingly technologised world.

Subtopic

• Topic 2: Types of Offending / White collar Crime, Organizational Crime, Corporate Crime, Financial Crime (EUROC)

Chair

• Jane Ngan, University of Manchester

Individual Presentations

• Understanding the dynamics and use of blockchain technology against food fraud - Alice Rizzuti, University of Hull; Jon Davies, The University of Manchester

• Artificial intelligence and the digital facilitation and control of fraud - Diana Bociga, University of Manchester; Nicholas Lord, The University of Manchester, UK

• Compliant, complicit or confused? Navigating personal and professional orbits in Authorised Push Payment Fraud - Jane Ngan, University of Manchester

• They are all so into you: How pig butchering and approval phishing fraud are national security issues. - Ashleigh Burnside, The University of Manchester