AI-Powered Crime Gangs: When Technology Meets the Underworld

Forget cyberpunk dystopias — AI is now the underworld’s favorite crime boss, and it’s coming for your wallet.

In a rapidly shifting criminal landscape, organized crime syndicates in Asia are leveraging AI, cryptocurrency, and messaging platforms like Telegram to expand their operations.

A UN report highlights the emergence of a "criminal service economy," where underground markets offer AI tools for fraud, money laundering, and deepfakes. These new technologies have turbocharged the scale and sophistication of criminal networks, making traditional crime-fighting methods look archaic by comparison.

Criminals are using AI to automate complex tasks such as coding malware, laundering money, and running social engineering scams. Deepfake-related crimes, for instance, have skyrocketed by over 1,500% between 2022 and 2023, fueled by AI that generates realistic but fraudulent images and videos. The number of deepfake ads on platforms like Telegram surged by 600% in just six months of 2024, enabling crime groups to deceive with increasing precision.

Cryptocurrencies, particularly stablecoins like Tether (USDT), are facilitating these illicit activities. Nearly 45% of all illicit cryptocurrency transactions occur on the TRON blockchain, with stablecoins enabling shorter scam cycles and faster laundering processes. The report reveals that the average duration of scams has dropped from 271 days in 2020 to just 42 in the first half of 2024, as criminals pivot to faster, more targeted operations.

Messaging apps like Telegram serve as the backbone of these operations, offering a relatively unregulated space for criminals to buy, sell, and coordinate their activities. Despite recent efforts by governments to crack down—such as arrests and forced removal of content—these platforms remain a haven for illegal activities, with minimal accountability.

As these crime networks grow more technologically savvy, the question looms: can governments adapt fast enough, or will organized crime stay one step ahead in the digital age?

Read the full article on The Register.

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This new breed of organized crime uses generative AI for laundering money, coding malware, and even producing deepfake scams that are nearly impossible to trace. The numbers are staggering: a 1,500% spike in deepfake crimes in the Asia-Pacific between 2022 and 2023, with Telegram playing a central role in facilitating these operations.

The rapid professionalization of these criminal enterprises raises a sobering question: can governments and tech companies keep up? With gangs becoming digital powerhouses, the race to control this AI-fueled crime wave is heating up. But will policymakers be agile enough to counteract this threat before it spirals beyond control?