- Frank Abagnale has spent the past five decades giving advice on avoiding fraud
He was the ultimate conman whose criminal exploits were immortalised in the Hollywood film Catch Me If You Can.
So Frank Abagnale – who evaded the FBI for years – should know a thing or two about fraud.
The 75-year-old, played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2002 movie, has warned AI will create a ‘tsunami’ of scammers just like him.
‘Anything today can be replicated, duplicated, counterfeited, deep-faked, or AI-manipulated,’ he said, adding: ‘Technology breeds crime. It always has and always will.’ Once one of the most formidable forgers, Mr Abagnale has since changed his ways and now advises governments and businesses on cybersecurity, identity theft, and scams.
Frank Abagnale Jr (pictured), a leading fraud expert and former scam artist
Leonardo DiCaprio playing Frank Abagnale in the 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can
Fraud accounts for 40 per cent of all crime in England and Wales, with a study this week revealing one in five Britons falling victim over the past three years.
A government report last year predicted generative AI – the technology behind chatbots – would fuel scams both in number and sophistication over the next 18 months.
Catch Me If You Can – directed by Steven Spielberg and also starring Tom Hanks – follows the FBI’s pursuit of Mr Abagnale during his criminal career in the mid-1960s and early 1970s.
The tale details how, between the ages of 16 and 21, he impersonated a Pan Am pilot, a hospital doctor, and a lawyer and cashed 17,000 bogus checks totalling around £2m.
Now reformed, Mr Abagnale – who admits parts of the story was ‘exaggerated’ – has spent the past five decades advising banks, businesses, and government agencies how to protect themselves against others like him.
In an interview with Techopedia, Mr Abagnale said: ‘AI is going to cause a tsunami of problems because of criminals’ ability to commit all types of crimes and scams.
‘Generative AI will play a major role in making it harder to know who is on the other end. ‘Deepfakes will become the norm. Companies must use the next level of identity verification that is immune to GenAI.
Mr Abagnale warned that AI is going to cause ‘a tsunami of problems’ as technology ‘breeds crime’
‘When young people ask me what career they should look into, I tell them that cybersecurity would be their best opportunity. Over the next several years, we will need more than half a million cybersecurity professionals.’
However, he said that AI would not be able to protect against ‘social engineering scams’, in which criminals exploit the victims’ trust to get money or information from them.
He said: ‘There is no technology, and there never will be any technology, including artificial intelligence, that can defeat [this]’.
Instead, he said the most powerful tool to safeguard the public against scammers was education, adding: ‘If I can explain to you how the scam works and you understand it, you will not be a victim of that crime.’
