FINANCIAL investigators from the North East say they are on the tracks of global scammers using game-changing artificial intelligence to help recover the criminals’ billions.

Cobra AI has been launched by financial investigators IYE Global to jump the ‘choke point’ which challenges investigators when information stops being in the public domain and exists within a ‘university of crime’.

Developed with intelligence gathered over more than 20 years, the system accesses more than 20 billion continually evolving data sets from a network of sources and intelligence collated from historic crimes.

Cobra AI is used by experienced analysts to interpret the data for clients in order to solve a range of scams, from isolated cryptocurrency, or complex cross-jurisdictional fraud, to sophisticated Ponzi schemes. It also uses facial recognition technology to identify fake ID profiles.

The success of the new system is because it investigates cryptocurrency transactions beyond the blockchain public ledger to identify the scammers and their associated bank accounts, including ‘money mules’.

“It has got a staggering reach with the help of our strategic partners,” says IYE Global chief executive Ron Cornforth, of Richmond.

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“It has been 20 years in the making, is the best of its type in the UK and we are using it to good effect to solve and predict a variety of crimes.”

One client recently fell victim to a scam where criminals contacted her pretending to be from her mobile phone provider. They said her phone had been used in a scam and that she might be arrested unless she contacted Hong Kong police.

She did, by video call, and the criminals had set up a bogus police station complete with fake prisoners in handcuffs and officers in uniform. She was conned out of millions which was later traced to banks in Hong Kong and China.

“The criminals had used Skype thinking it was secure,” said Mr Cornforth.

“But we traced the same Skype ID code number to a billion dollar fraud in Thailand, which we have shared with police who hope to make an arrest.”

In another multi-million dollar scam in the USA criminals used the same bogus trading agreement that they had used ten years earlier in another fraud. It was picked up by Cobra AI. It also identified known associates in both crimes.

It is very much a business. They are based in offices, they talk about their successes and learn from each other about what works best. It’s a university of crime.

“We plan to continue developing Cobra AI over the years and it will just get better and better,” Mr Cornforth said.

“Just like Google had very little on it ten years ago but is now the biggest in the world, Cobra AI will follow the same process but be refined around criminality.”

Having located the money in legitimate bank accounts operated by criminals, IYE works to recover the funds by convincing the authorities to freeze them and seek compensation.

When the money does disappear IYE presses the banks to compensate clients on the grounds that often they have not shown due diligence or they have inadvertently laundered illegal money.

“If the money has gone, there’s no point taking out a civil case against criminals but the banks could be liable. One of the strongest elements of the Central Bank regulations surrounds money laundering and banks have to be aware of what is happening on their watch. If we can show they have failed in their duty of care we can take action to recover the money from them,” Mr Cornforth.

“The criminals are very plausible and can manipulate psychologically very intelligent people,” Mr Cornforth said. “They start with small amounts and quickly convince them to hand over thousands and the victim feels, frightened, embarrassed and isolated so goes along with it.

“It is very much a business. They are based in offices, they talk about their successes and learn from each other about what works best. It’s a university of crime.”