8 Frightening Forecasts For The Future Of Fraud

Fraud is entering a new era. Businesses across North America expect fraud trends like biometric fraud, deepfake scams, and synthetic identities to become more common in 2026 as criminals adopt faster and more sophisticated tools.

This visualization, created by Visual Capitalist's Julia Wendling, in partnership with Inigo for the Fraud in Data campaign’s sixth post, uses data from the Sumsub Fraud Report 2025 to explore the fraud trends businesses believe will shape the future of digital risk.

Biometric Fraud Could Become the Biggest Threat

Surveyed businesses expect biometric fraud to rise the most, with 67% predicting an increase. As companies rely more on facial recognition, voice authentication, and remote onboarding, fraudsters are finding new ways to exploit those systems.

Deepfake technology is already making identity verification harder. In the future, AI-generated videos, cloned voices, and stolen biometric data could make fraud attempts more convincing and more scalable than ever before.

Businesses also expect synthetic identity fraud to grow, with 56% anticipating a rise. Criminals are increasingly combining real and fake information to create identities that can bypass traditional fraud checks.

AI and Deepfakes Are Changing Fraud Trends

Businesses expect fraud attacks to become more automated in 2026. Around 44% predict increases in advanced AI-driven attacks, deepfake scams, and forged identity documents.

Another 33% expect AI-generated fake profiles to rise as fraudsters use generative AI tools to impersonate real users online. These scams could become faster to produce and harder to detect across financial services, ecommerce, and digital platforms.

As fraud tactics evolve, businesses may need to shift from reactive fraud prevention toward real-time risk monitoring powered by machine learning and behavioral analysis.

Data Breaches Will Continue to Fuel Identity Fraud

Data breaches are expected to remain a major source of fraud risk. About 33% of businesses anticipate more identity theft linked to stolen personal data.

Organized fraud networks are also expanding, according to 22% of respondents. As cybercriminal groups become more coordinated, fraud operations could become increasingly global and industrialized.

The Future of Fraud Trends

Companies that invest in adaptive verification systems, stronger cybersecurity, and understand the data around fraud prevention may be better positioned to respond to the next generation of threats.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/19/2026 - 22:15

How The Trump Admin Achieved Record Drug Seizures

Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times,

SAN DIEGO - As the flood of illegal immigrants at the southern border slowed to a trickle, agents shifted gears. Now, they're focused on seizing drugs - in record amounts - as the border is more secure than ever, officials told The Epoch Times.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) took The Epoch Times behind the scenes at the border between San Diego and Mexico - home to the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the busiest land border crossing in the Western Hemisphere.

The San Diego sector, patrolled by thousands of federal officers, encompasses more than 56,000 square miles. That includes 60 linear miles of international boundary between the United States and Mexico, and an additional 931 miles of coastal border stretching from the California-Mexico line north to Oregon.

Officers said the success they're experiencing - not just in drug seizures, but also in fewer illegal immigrants entering the country - stems from the Trump administration's tough border policies.

"Without having four or five hundred people in detention making an asylum claim, I'm going to take those officers and say, 'I don't need you to process asylum claims, I need you out there looking for dope, looking for people smuggling, looking for those agriculture violations,'" Mariza Marin, port director at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, told The Epoch Times.

Marin said she was able to move about 180 officers from handling administrative work processing illegal immigrants to enforcement and inspection.

"That's huge; 180 individuals is huge," said Sidney Aki, San Diego director of field operations.

The Evidence

Under the Biden administration, total drug seizure amounts for fiscal years 2024 and 2023 were 573,000 and 549,000, respectively.

In 2025, the first year of the Trump administration, drug seizures were slightly more, at 583,000.

But border agents seized 516,000 pounds of drugs from October 2025 through April 2026 alone. That's the first seven months of the current fiscal year for CBP, meaning five months remain for the agency to extend those numbers. And historically, summer months tend to yield higher seizure amounts, according to Department of Homeland Security data.

In April, agents seized 185,000 pounds of illegal narcotics, the biggest monthly seizure since officials began to track totals.

U.S Customs and Border Protection agents monitor border traffic outside of San Diego on May 26, 2026. Agents who had previously been tied up processing a flood of illegal immigrants under the Biden administration are seizing significant amounts of illegal narcotics compared to years prior. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Last month, CBP announced its office of field operations had seized a historic amount of fentanyl: about 100 million lethal doses from October 2025 through May this year. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, a lethal dose of fentanyl is about two milligrams.

"When you look at the point of where we are now compared to the course we were on previously, we are increasing our numbers and seizures," Aki said.

Methamphetamine and cocaine seizures are also surpassing previous numbers.

This fiscal year, CBP officers have seized more than 152,000 pounds of methamphetamine, eclipsing seizures for all of fiscal year 2025. They've seized more than 28,000 pounds of cocaine, surpassing fiscal year 2025 to date by about 6,000 pounds.

Federal Backing

While policy changes on immigration and the border have led to the refocusing of personnel, a top-to-bottom support system from the Trump administration has also created high morale and motivation for federal officers, they said.

Border enforcement and security, which is "emphasized significantly with this administration," continues to increase, Aki said.

Since Trump returned to the White House, he has signed executive actions designating cartels as terrorist organizations and fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed nearly a year ago, allocated $170 billion for border security and immigration enforcement initiatives.

On June 10, Trump signed a roughly $70 billion bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol. The Secure America Act ended a 116-day dispute over immigration funding.

The measure will fund ICE and Border Patrol through Sept. 30, 2029, going beyond the end of Trump's term.

Enforcement At An Entry Point

The Epoch Times witnessed how agents at a port of entry carry out their tasks.

The massive San Ysidro Port of Entry has a total of 34 lanes, which are funneled into seven upon entry, and two separate pedestrian walkways that allow travelers to cross the international boundary by foot.

About 42,000 to 47,000 vehicles cross per day, Marin said.

Taking into account the number of passengers in each vehicle, commercial trucks, and pedestrians, the total number of individuals entering the United States through the crossing each day likely eclipses 100,000.

The vetting process to ensure each of these travelers is abiding by U.S. law starts with what federal agents call the "primary" or "technology zone," immediately adjacent to the international boundary.

But, with the help of Mexican authorities, intelligence gathering and enforcement can extend beyond that.

Coordination with Mexico is the best it's ever been, the officials said. Sometimes, their Mexican law enforcement counterparts intercept bad actors before they even reach the U.S. border, said Justin De La Torre, chief patrol agent for the San Diego Sector.

However, with so many thousands of vehicles and individuals seeking to enter the United States each day, things can slip by Mexican authorities.

That's when the primary or technology zone comes into play. The zone is where an intelligence package begins to be built on travelers.

Border patrol agents take pictures of each car, its driver, and any passengers. Radiation portal monitors scan vehicles to ensure there are no radiological threats. This technology, Marin said, has a very low alarm threshold - for good reason.

By the time a traveler reaches a primary officer for what the agents call an "interview" before entering the country, they already know who the traveler is, their crossing history, potential criminal history, vehicles they've driven across the border, people they've crossed with, and more.

"It could be a driver that nine times we saw him in a Versa, and then we see him in a Fiat," Marin said. "'Where'd you get this car?' So the officers are trying to build that picture, and that's part of the interview."

An officer's instinct plays a major role during the interview process in catching violators.

What might appear to be innocent questions or small talk, Aki said, is actually agents trying "to poke holes" into your story. "Why did you go to Mexico? Why are you coming to the United States? Whose car is this? Why are you bringing that?'"

Meanwhile, officers are looking for physical signs that could point to nefarious activity: indicators of nervousness such as fidgeting, white knuckling, and avoiding eye contact.

Intelligence packages are also used for commercial trucks entering the United States.

Intelligence plays a massive role in intercepting large drug smuggling attempts and preventing further ones, Aki said. It can point to previous loads a truck has carried, where it came from, who loaded it, who has operated it, and whether it has ever had any compliance violations.

Marin and Aki credited intelligence with a massive methamphetamine seizure from three separate trucks over the span of a week.

"It was basically in flower pots, cement, as well as flat-screen televisions," Aki said. The seizure was based on intelligence gathering that suggested a nefarious connection and prompted further inspection. Ultimately, officers intercepted nearly 9,000 pounds of methamphetamine, Aki said.

In an example at the Texas border, officers discovered 307 hidden packages in a tractor-trailer hauling lettuce from Mexico.

Sidney Aki, director of field operations for U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s San Diego Field Office, monitors border crossings at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on May 26, 2026. Aki and other officials told The Epoch Times the border is more secure now than at any point in their careers, and in U.S. history. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times Tyler Durden Fri, 06/19/2026 - 21:30

"Only The Beginning": How To Profit From The Asymmetric Warfare Boom

Low-cost kamikaze drones are fundamentally reshaping the modern battlefield and forcing militaries to rethink procurement strategies built around expensive, high-end weapons systems.

In the Middle East, US Special Forces learned the hard way that cheap Iranian Shahed-style drones can eliminate multi-million-dollar (if not billion-dollar) communications, radar, and command-and-control nodes.

The result of this Iranian offensive with cheap drones, which exposed a missing air-defense layer over high-value U.S. military communications systems across the Gulf region, will trigger a defense procurement reset. The U.S. military is now racing to source, order, and stockpile low-cost one-way attack drones, interceptors, and counter-UAS systems before the next conflict erupts - or US-Iran ceasefire blows up.

Piper Sandler analyst Clarke Jeffries is now arriving at the same conclusion we have been highlighting:

We anticipate one of the biggest lessons of the 2020s will be how affordable drone technology fundamentally reshaped the modern combat environment and set the stage for a reevaluation of the procurement, organization and strategy of ~$3T in annual global military expenditures.

While drones have existed in the modern military apparatus for decades at this point, it was the Ukraine war (as one of the first near-peer conflicts in recent memory) which provided demonstrable evidence of how specifically lightweight and affordable systems could change the paradigm of combat.

Jeffries provided clients with a detailed overview of the nine public and nineteen private companies powering America's emerging drone industry. His takeaway: this is still the early chapters of a market set for massive growth, as the U.S. military and allied nations push the procurement cycle into higher gear next year and through the end of the decade.

He sees the first wave of the market centered on inexpensive UAS production, domestic supply chains, and rapid procurement, while the second wave will be driven by autonomy, swarming, mothership configurations, and deeper integration into command-and-control networks.

He pointed out that AI software will be as important as hardware, with platforms such as Palantir's Maven Smart System poised to turn massive drone sensor feeds into highly usable battlefield intelligence.

"With most nations averse to endure undue cost to the already punishing economics of pursuing a war, we see proliferation of Group 1-3 UAS as an inevitability and the next major technology inflection point for the aerospace and defense industry," the analyst said.

He continued: 

Democratizing asymmetric warfare; sUAS has redefined the rules of engagement. Much of modern military history has been the story of haves and have-nots, with 10 countries accounting for 72% of global military spend and dominating production of the most capable and exquisite systems. Drone technology however (and specifically small unmanned aircraft systems: sUAS) has vastly increased the accessibility and affordability of highly capable military equipment and subverted the advantage of using exquisite systems into a costly strategy. In Ukraine and Iran, drones of all sizes have become de facto standard for air campaigns launched as low-cost attritable munitions. These drones are regularly countered by more expensive defense methods: missiles, interceptors, rockets creating a challenging cost-exchange issue. Every drone launched is net dollar advantage to the belligerent firing them. With most nations averse to endure undue cost to the already punishing economics of pursuing a war, we see proliferation of Group 1-3 UAS as an inevitability and the next major technology inflection point for the aerospace and defense industry.

Jeffries lays out three key conclusions about the rapidly changing defense landscape:

Public companies flagged by Jeffries as benefiting include AeroVironment, Ondas, Red Cat, AEVEX, Redwire, Insitu and Teledyne FLIR, while private names include Anduril, Skydio, Shield AI, Quantum Systems, Performance Drone Works, DZYNE, Firestorm Labs and Neros.

An example of this technology. Meet DZYNE's BlitzBox system ... 

The American company Dzyne has introduced the BlitzBox system, a container for covertly launching a swarm of attack drones. On the outside, it looks like an ordinary cargo box, but inside, it can hold up to 100 Blitz drones, ready to launch in minutes.#DroneWars #UAS #UAV pic.twitter.com/w9aRaZYrCZ

— Drone Wars (@Drone_Wars_) May 27, 2026

He noted, "Today, most militaries are still in the earliest innings of their sUAS efforts: building defensible supply chains, refining specific designs, aligning the organizational and budgetary structure to successfully field these systems."

Follow the money...

Lessons from the Ukraine & Iranian Conflicts

Notable Drone Programs

Notable UAS Contracts

The UAS Blue List

Past, Present and Future of the Drone Operator

Swarming

Rise of Mothership Drones

In a separate note, Needham analyst Austin Bohlig noted that increasing congressional support for drones and counter-drone technologies has been reflected in the FY27 National Defense Authorization Act and related appropriations bills.

Related:

• JPM Call With Axon Reveals Race To Fortify U.S. Data Centers Against Kamikaze Drone Swarms

• Goldman Sits Down With Anduril As 'War Unicorns' Reshape Defense Tech

• "Flying Beer Cooler": Pentagon's Next Kamikaze Drone Ushers In Era Of Cheap Mass-Produced Airpower

• Congress Moves To Boost Drone Funding As "War Unicorns" See Possible Procurement Supercycle

The safe conclusion is that the public and private drone companies mentioned above are positioned to reap major rewards as military procurement cycles shift toward these low-cost systems and annual global military spending surges in the coming years.

Professional subscribers can find more war tech notes at our new Marketdesk.ai portal. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/19/2026 - 20:45

Elon Musk Vs The Democrats: Outcomes Vs Process

Authored by Stephen Soukup via American Greatness,

Years ago, when my oldest son was a Boy Scout, he was asked to write a report/make a presentation on a modern American “hero.” He chose Elon Musk, and I, of course, rolled my eyes so hard they nearly popped out of my head.

I knew Musk was a successful businessman, but I also knew that he was both an advocate for and a seasoned manipulator of Big Government. Tesla, for example, received a $465 million Department of Energy loan in 2010 under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, a Big Government scheme to encourage private companies to advance Big Government priorities (namely, fighting Climate Change by reducing carbon emissions). Likewise, Tesla was, at least at the time, commercially viable only because of the more than $1 billion ($7,500/vehicle) in federal EV tax credits claimed by its buyers. Without government greasing the proverbial wheels a bit, Tesla would have struggled to get the literal wheels rolling out the sales floor doors.

Moreover, Musk publicly acknowledged that he voted for Obama and presented himself as part of the “green” business revolution, men and women who could and would “do well by doing good.”

My, how things change.

Just a short decade later, Elon Musk is, indeed, regarded as a genuine hero by most on the American political Right—and by anyone who favors free enterprise—while he is loathed and actively derided by his former friends and allies on the Left. Especially this past week, after the SpaceX IPO made him the world’s first trillionaire, the Democrats and other leftists who once loved him, partnered with him, and sang his praises loudly have shown nothing but contempt for him and hatred for his inarguable business success. As the controversial Democratic Senate nominee from Maine, Graham Platner, ominously put it, “Elon Musk just became the world’s first trillionaire. Let’s make sure he’s also the last.”

How, exactly, did we get here?

The biggest part of the story is Musk’s own political evolution, which proceeded slowly, in stages, but was accelerated at a handful of inflection points.

Of these inflection points, two stand out among the others.

The first of these took place during President Biden’s first year in office.

Biden and his administration were knee-deep in pushing a new, far more aggressive climate agenda. On his first day in office, Biden issued 17 executive orders, several of which addressed climate change and other environmental matters. Most notably, he signed an order to reinstate the nation’s participation in the Paris Accords, thereby placing a policy-making emphasis on electrification and decarbonization. A big part of that effort—as would be evinced in the “Inflation Reduction Act” passed the following year—was pushing the purchase of electric vehicles. To that end, on August 4, 2021, Biden hosted an EV “summit” at the White House. He invited three EV makers—General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis—to watch him sign another executive order, this one mandating that half of all new vehicles sold in the United States by 2030 be EVs. Of the three, GM had the largest percentage of its sales derived from fully electric vehicles—1.5 percent. Ford sat at 1.3 percent, and Stellantis didn’t even have an electric vehicle for sale in the American market. Meanwhile, Tesla was the nation’s largest EV auto seller at the time, and 100 percent of its vehicles were fully electric. Yet Musk and his company were left off the Biden team’s guest list.

What GM, Ford, and Stellantis did have, of course, was the support of the United Auto Workers Union. In fact, the three also just happened to be the largest UAW employers. Tesla, by contrast, had long fought the unionization of its factories and had been embroiled in a rather ugly dispute with the UAW. In response to the snub, Musk vented a bit, tweeting:

Biden held this EV summit. Didn’t invite Tesla.

Invited GM, Ford, Chrysler, and UAW. EV summit at the White House, didn’t mention Tesla once and praised GM and Ford for leading the EV revolution.

Doesn’t it sound a little bias? It’s not the friendliest of administrations.

Seems to be controlled by the unions.

Just under a year later, Musk reached the second inflection point, which also turned out to be his breaking point.

In May 2022, the S&P 500 ESG Index conducted its annual rebalancing. And when it did, it removed Tesla.

ESG stands for “environmental, social, and governance” investing, a strategy that purports to push corporations to address issues beyond traditional profits and losses, focusing on the broader societal impacts of their operations. I wrote a whole book about ESG (The Dictatorship of Woke Capital) in which I made the case that its flaws are numerous and disqualifying. One of the most significant of these is that ESG has no set definition. It means whatever its practitioners decide it means in the moment, based on little more than preference and convenience. And this is precisely where the S&P’s index ran into problems with Tesla.

By any objective measure, Tesla should have been a mainstay of any investment strategy focused on environmental benefits. It was and is a pioneer in carbon reduction strategies in the personal transportation market. What could be more environmentally friendly than that? The S&P, however, objected to Tesla’s procedural strategies, or lack thereof. It argued that Tesla didn’t have a published “low-carbon strategy,” or verifiable “codes of conduct.” It noted that the automaker had been accused of racial discrimination and didn’t do a great job of handling a National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation. In short, the ESG index tossed the innovator in “E” technology off its list of acceptable companies because it valued the process of the ESG strategy more than it did the outcomes.

Needless to say, this incensed Musk. On May 18, he (once again) tweeted his frustration:

Exxon is rated top ten best in world for environment, social & governance (ESG) by S&P 500, while Tesla didn’t make the list! ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.

Not coincidentally, two and a half hours later, Musk returned to Twitter to make an announcement about his partisan political future:

In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold . . .

It is worth noting here that Musk didn’t just switch parties. He radicalized. His change in partisan affiliation and political involvement was night and day.

He went from a quiet, nominally aligned center-leftist to a full-blown, aggressive libertarian-conservative. Instead of giving $1,000 here and $1,000 there to Democratic candidates, he started throwing money into politics as if he’d never miss it (in part because he never would). He backed Donald Trump with millions of dollars and then joined his administration (for free) as the leader and organizer of DOGE. The combination of the union-driven and the ESG-driven snubs sent him over the edge. Not only would he no longer support Democrats, but he would support their opponents loudly and generously.

Although it would be easy (and not entirely wrong) to say that Elon Musk’s political evolution was a self-inflicted wound by the Democrats, who enthusiastically chased him out of their party, it’s more accurate to say that the break between the two was a structural inevitability. That inevitability was inarguably exacerbated and hastened by Democratic overconfidence and miscalculation, but that’s the difference between Musk simply leaving the party and becoming radicalized for the other side. Musk’s shift away from Democratic politics was likely always going to happen and is emblematic of the long-standing tension between so-called “progressives” and actual progress. The ideology that once sought explicitly to “better” the nation and its people has become little more than a machine for creating rules, often at the expense of that improvement. Musk’s fervent embrace of the Democrats’ opponents was driven by personalities—theirs, his, and probably Trump’s.

Think about it this way...

 The Progressive coalition traditionally has very much resembled the S&P ESG index noted above. It has always been carefully managed, regulated, labor-friendly, bureaucratic, and procedure-driven. It has always been more about process than outcome. Musk, for his part, is the opposite. He is disruptive, as capitalist entrepreneurs tend to be. He favors that which moves fast, eschews established rubrics, and achieves results. He is outcome-driven and cares very little (sometimes, maybe, too little) about process. The idea that he and today’s Democrats could have remained strongly aligned is, in retrospect, incongruous.

That’s not to say that he and the GOP are perfectly aligned, but certainly his ethos fits better there, at least for the moment.

The bottom line here is that while process values have their place, they can be self-defeating, particularly when they are allowed to serve as a substitute for experience and reality.

The Democrats don’t hate Elon Musk because he’s a trillionaire. They hate him because he became a trillionaire by breaking all their dearly held and largely outmoded rules.

There’s a profound lesson in that, if anyone is willing to learn it.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/19/2026 - 20:00

Here's How 45 Countries View America

America remains one of the world’s most influential countries, but public opinion of the U.S. varies widely across the globe.

Some of its strongest support now comes from emerging economies such as Vietnam, India, and the Philippines, while favorability has weakened across several longtime Western allies.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, ranks how people in 45 countries view the U.S. using January 2026 survey data from Morning Consult’s America Reputation Tracker.

Where Positive Views Are the Highest

Israel and Nigeria rank first in the survey, with 83% of respondents holding favorable views of America.

Morocco, Vietnam, and Peru round out the top five, highlighting how some of the strongest support for the U.S. now comes from outside its traditional circle of Western allies.

India has the highest favorability rating of any major economy at 62%, ranking ahead of countries such as Canada, Germany, and France.

Argentina also places in the top 10, underscoring how perceptions of America are often strongest in countries that view the U.S. as an important economic, security, or strategic partner.

The Countries Souring on America

Trade disputes and rising political tensions have weighed heavily on America’s image among many of its traditional allies.

Tariffs on Canada and Europe, criticism of NATO, suggestions that Canada could become the 51st state, and President Trump’s interest in acquiring Greenland have all strained relations across the Western alliance. As a result, nine of the 10 lowest favorability ratings in the survey come from Western countries, including Canada, France, Germany, and Sweden.

In response to growing uncertainty around U.S. policy, Canada has expanded economic cooperation with Europe and sought closer engagement with China.

One of the survey’s most surprising findings is that China ranks ahead of several longstanding U.S. allies. Despite ongoing geopolitical rivalry between Washington and Beijing, America’s favorability rating in China exceeds that of countries including Canada, Belgium, and Sweden.

In other words, countries that have been America’s closest partners for decades now view it less favorably than its chief geopolitical rival.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on how much U.S. states rely on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/19/2026 - 19:15