A certified fraud examiner and professional investigator, Ransford Nana Addo Junior, has warned that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the face of online fraud, with some scams now being carried out by automated systems rather than human criminals.

Speaking on Joy FM's Super Morning Show on Friday, July 31, during a discussion on getting ahead of online scams, he said advances in AI have made fraudsters more sophisticated and their operations more difficult to detect.

"It has gotten to the point where AI has added value to the job of scammers, and now scams are being automated. So, the person who is scamming you may not even be a human being, may be an AI," he said.

According to him, AI-powered systems are now capable of engaging victims in real-time conversations, making online scams more convincing than ever before.

"They've been groomed. Machine learning has taught them how to respond to every message. They chat with you," he explained.

Ransford Nana Addo Junior said it is important for the public to understand that modern fraud is no longer random but a well-organised criminal enterprise.

"I just want us to lay the foundation that scammers are not uneducated people or people who do not have an idea of what they are doing. They go through proper training, they go through grooming," he said.

He noted that fraudsters acquire skills similar to those taught to certified forensic examiners and law enforcement investigators.

"They learn the sort of things that we learn as certified forensic examiners and police investigators," he added.

The fraud investigator said scams have existed throughout history because some people will always seek to exploit others for financial gain.

"From the days of Adam and Eve, scams have been with us, and they will continue to be with us because human beings would like to take advantage of other people," he said.

He explained that fraudsters often manipulate emotions such as greed, urgency and the desire to make quick money before victims eventually realise they have been deceived.

He listed several common forms of fraud, including romance scams, money mule scams, investment scams, lottery scams, Ponzi and pyramid schemes, recruitment scams and online shopping scams.

While online scams continue to dominate public attention, he said that they are only one part of a much wider fraud ecosystem.

"We have failed to understand that fraud and scams have become a profession for people who also go through apprenticeship. They train," he said.

Drawing on his investigative experience, he recalled an operation carried out with the police at Teshie Nungua Estate, where investigators uncovered the structured operations of a scam syndicate.

"We arrested a guy in Teshie Nungua Estate, and when we rounded them up with the police, we saw that they have an organogram. They go through interviews, they have a pay structure, and these are people who are recruited to scam," he revealed.

According to him, members of these criminal groups work in organised teams, sitting behind computers to identify potential victims, create fake websites, run deceptive online advertisements and groom targets before stealing their money.

"They are scouting for targets, they prepare the grounds, they groom them, they enter into designing fake websites, and then they do adverts. They have targets to meet at the end of the day," he said.

He also traced the evolution of fraud over the past four decades.

According to him, fraud in the 1980s was largely opportunistic, with criminals taking advantage of unsuspecting victims during face-to-face interactions.

"But immediately we entered the 2000s, when the internet and computers entered the sub-Saharan African region, and we had internet cafés, fraud moved that way. Scams moved from opportunistic to what you call planned," he explained.

He said the spread of internet access transformed fraud into organised, cross-border criminal activity, with anonymity becoming one of the greatest tools available to scammers.

"It got organised. It got cross-border because the internet gives you a wide reach. Limitless anonymity is a godfather of scams because you don't know who you are talking to," he said.

He also warned that the increasing popularity of online shopping has created fresh opportunities for criminals to exploit consumers.

He said fraudsters take advantage of people's preference for convenience by positioning themselves between legitimate retailers and customers.

"Customers and consumers like convenience and the criminals love it. Because you don't want to walk to that shop to go and pick an item. You want to place a call so that the item is brought to you," he said.

"The convenience that you seek, they will come between you and a retail shop and take money from you. The retail shop doesn't get the money, the customer doesn't get the goods, the criminal is happy."

The fraud examiner further suggested that the true scale of online fraud is much larger than official figures indicate because many victims choose not to report their experiences.

"From my experience, when one person reports, and somebody is arrested, then you see 10 other people come to say, 'They did the same thing to me,'" he said.

"My statistic is that it is only one out of 10 stories that is told. The rest are not told. It is only 10% of victims who actually discuss this or even report it."