From Bazooka to Fake Nikes

This article examines business impersonation fraud connecting traditional check fraud with modern AI-powered shopping scams. Commercial check fraud has surged 11% in 2025, with fraudsters exploiting state-by-state business registration gaps to create legitimate-sounding fake companies like 'The Bazooka Companies 1 Inc' to cash stolen checks worth millions. Simultaneously, AI-enabled brand impersonation on social media targets younger consumers, with 40% of millennials and Gen Zers falling for fake advertisements. The core vulnerability lies in ecosystem gaps between social media platforms, card networks, merchant onboarders, banks, and business registries—each relying on the other's verification. Controls like Positive Pay and 3D Secure have pushed fraudsters to evolve schemes that render these protections irrelevant. Mitigation requires improved cross-platform verification and stronger business registration validation across state lines.

A deep dive into business impersonation fraud — from fake companies cashing stolen checks to AI-powered shopping scams — and why the same vulnerability enables both.

This article examines business impersonation fraud connecting traditional check fraud with modern AI-powered shopping scams. Commercial check fraud has surged 11% in 2025, with fraudsters exploiting state-by-state business registration gaps to create legitimate-sounding fake companies like 'The Bazooka Companies 1 Inc' to cash stolen checks worth millions. Simultaneously, AI-enabled brand impersonation on social media targets younger consumers, with 40% of millennials and Gen Zers falling for fake advertisements. The core vulnerability lies in ecosystem gaps between social media platforms, card networks, merchant onboarders, banks, and business registries—each relying on the other's verification. Controls like Positive Pay and 3D Secure have pushed fraudsters to evolve schemes that render these protections irrelevant. Mitigation requires improved cross-platform verification and stronger business registration validation across state lines. A deep dive into business impersonation fraud — from fake companies cashing stolen checks to AI-powered shopping scams — and why the same vulnerability enables both. Business impersonation is the hidden thread connecting old and new fraud. Discover how the same core tactic is fueling both a surge in commercial check fraud and an explosion of AI-powered online shopping scams targeting younger consumers. Tools like Positive Pay and 3D Secure authentication, while effective against the fraud they were built to stop, have pushed threat actors to evolve their schemes in ways that render those controls irrelevant. Ecosystem gaps are often the real vulnerability. Fraudsters exploit the chain of assumed trust between social media platforms, card networks, merchant onboarders, banks, and local business registries — turning each party's reliance on the last into an open door. If you’re a millennial or Gen Z-er, then you probably haven’t used a paper check in a while. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta , just 1 out of 5 of your peers used a check in the last 30 days, versus 2 out of 5 Gen Xers and 3 out of 5 boomers. Yet despite year-on-year decreases in overall usage, Nasdaq Verafin saw check fraud instances rise another 11% in 2025. Then again, if you are a millennial or Gen Z-er, you will have seen an advertisement for a cheap product on social media. For 40% of you , that has meant falling for an online shopping scam. On the face of it, these look like two ends of the fraud spectrum: On the one hand, we have what feels like the past: paper check usage rates even among those aged 65+ fell from 13% of transactions in 2013 to 6% in 2025 ( Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta ). On the other hand, we have the future: online shopping scams target a younger demographic through AI-enabled brand impersonation and sprawling social media ad ecosystems. The payment instruments, demographics, and the teams working at financial institutions to address these problems differ. So what’s the thread linking them together? Business impersonation. It manifests itself differently across schemes, but for anti-fraud systems built to detect check washing and counterfeiting on the one hand, and unauthorized third-party card fraud on the other, business impersonation has emerged as the fraudster’s response to exploit both. Commercial checks and copycat businesses across state lines In the past, stolen checks were often whitewashed to change the recipient and amount, and then walked into banks for cashout. The Postal Inspection Service received over 299,000 mail theft complaints in a single 12-month period—a 161% increase from the prior year. Recorded Future’s Fraud Intelligence Team analyzed and mapped stolen checks to US geographies, illustrating hot spots of physical crime and observing that it remains a national issue that extends beyond heavily urbanized areas. Mapping stolen checks by zip code; courtesy of Recorded Future Yet even among declining consumer check usage rates, businesses’ use of commercial checks remains stubbornly high in the US: the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) found that 91% of organizations are still using checks, and 63% experienced check fraud in 2024. When businesses send checks to suppliers, the amounts can rise quickly, leading fraudsters to expand beyond simple check-washing schemes. In perhaps the most eye-catching example, fraudsters intercepted a commercial check destined for bubble-gum giant Bazooka in 2022. A $1.24 million check. Over the next two weeks, they transferred and withdrew over half a million dollars. How’d they do it? You can’t just wash out the payee name on a million-dollar check, replace it with John Smith, and expect it to clear after depositing it into a personal checking account. Instead, the threat actors just created a fake Bazooka. The real Bazooka is registered in Delaware under the name “The Bazooka Companies, LLC”, so culprits registered a fictitious company in New York under the name “The Bazooka Companies 1 Inc”. They...