Tax season scams are nothing new, but David Maimon is tracking a worrying evolution. As head of Fraud Insights at SentiLink and a professor of fraud intelligence at Georgia State University, David has been studying how organised crime groups are now blending stolen identities with generative AI and deepfake technology to outpace traditional security measures. In this conversation, he explains how identities from some of the least likely victims, including death row inmates, are being exploited to open neobank accounts, set up fake businesses, and run sophisticated bust-out schemes with a low risk of detection.
David breaks down how these operations work, from creating synthetic identities using stolen Social Security numbers to manufacturing convincing documents and faces that can pass liveness checks. He reveals the telltale signs his team uncovered, such as shared physical addresses, legacy email domains, and consistent digital fingerprints that point to coordinated fraud rings. With tools like DeepFaceLive, Avatarify, and cloned voices now being deployed to bypass authentication, he warns that the gap between criminal innovation and institutional defences can be as wide as 7 to 12 months.
We also explore why financial institutions struggle to detect these scams early, and why layered verification, combining real-time checks with historical identity analysis, is essential. David shares the threats on the horizon, from increasingly realistic AI-generated images to voice cloning attacks, and stresses the need for both technological solutions and public awareness to slow the momentum of these schemes.
Whether you work in banking, cybersecurity, or simply want to protect your own identity, this episode offers a rare look inside the tactics, tools, and vulnerabilities shaping the next wave of financial fraud. And yes, there is still time at the end for a great book recommendation and a classic Tom Petty track.
