Recorded Future Expands Coverage of Scams and Financial Fraud with Money Mule Intelligence from CYBERA

Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud is emerging as a critical threat to financial institutions, with U.S. losses projected to nearly double from $8.3B in 2024 to $15B by 2028. This growth is driven by AI-generated deepfakes, personalized scam scripts, and instant payment systems like FedNow and Zelle that outpace traditional fraud controls. Money mule networks form the backbone of these scams, enabling criminals to convert stolen funds into untraceable cash or cryptocurrency. Criminal organizations now employ sophisticated 'mule herders' managing hundreds of accounts using AI to simulate legitimate transaction behavior, evading traditional detection. Regulatory pressure is intensifying, with the UK mandating scam victim reimbursement and the U.S. signaling bank liability for failing to detect mule accounts. CYBERA's Money Mule Intelligence, now integrated with Recorded Future, provides verified account intelligence to help banks proactively disrupt fraud at the point of fund extraction before losses occur.

Recorded Future is expanding its payment fraud prevention capabilities through a partnership with CYBERA, the industry leader in detecting and verifying data on scam-linked bank accounts.

Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud is emerging as a critical threat to financial institutions, with U.S. losses projected to nearly double from $8.3B in 2024 to $15B by 2028. This growth is driven by AI-generated deepfakes, personalized scam scripts, and instant payment systems like FedNow and Zelle that outpace traditional fraud controls. Money mule networks form the backbone of these scams, enabling criminals to convert stolen funds into untraceable cash or cryptocurrency. Criminal organizations now employ sophisticated 'mule herders' managing hundreds of accounts using AI to simulate legitimate transaction behavior, evading traditional detection. Regulatory pressure is intensifying, with the UK mandating scam victim reimbursement and the U.S. signaling bank liability for failing to detect mule accounts. CYBERA's Money Mule Intelligence, now integrated with Recorded Future, provides verified account intelligence to help banks proactively disrupt fraud at the point of fund extraction before losses occur. Recorded Future is expanding its payment fraud prevention capabilities through a partnership with CYBERA, the industry leader in detecting and verifying data on scam-linked bank accounts. Recorded Future is expanding its payment fraud prevention capabilities through a partnership with CYBERA , the industry leader in detecting and verifying data on scam-linked bank accounts. Available for purchase now via the Recorded Future Platform, Money Mule Intelligence helps fraud teams identify the accounts criminals use to extract and move stolen funds—addressing a critical gap as scams increasingly become banks' most pressing fraud challenge. The Growing Threat of Authorized Push Payment Fraud Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud is accelerating. In the U.S., APP fraud losses are projected to reach nearly $15B by 2028, up from $8.3B in 2024, according to Deloitte . While traditional card fraud continues to decline, APP fraud is climbing, fueled by AI-generated deepfakes, personalized scam scripts, and instant payment systems like FedNow and Zelle that move money faster than conventional fraud controls can intercept it. Mule accounts, or money mules, are part of the critical infrastructure that makes these scams possible. They provide the bridge that converts stolen payments into untraceable cash or cryptocurrency. Without them, most APP fraud would collapse because criminals cannot risk receiving funds directly into their own accounts. By the time victims realize they've been scammed, mule accounts have already moved the money through multiple layers, typically ending in cash withdrawals or crypto conversions. Additionally, the sophistication of mule operations is increasing. Criminal organizations now employ "mule herders" who manage hundreds of accounts at once, using AI to simulate normal transaction behavior (grocery purchases, streaming subscriptions, etc.) so accounts don't appear dormant or suspicious. This makes detection through traditional pattern analysis increasingly difficult. Regulators are responding by shifting liability to banks, often viewing those allowing mule accounts to operate as part of the criminal infrastructure itself. For example, the UK now requires banks to reimburse scam victims and allows them to delay suspicious payments for investigation, while U.S. regulators are signaling that banks may be held liable for failing to detect mule accounts. Detecting mule accounts is fundamentally difficult. They’re designed to blend in with legitimate activity, and traditional fraud controls can struggle to distinguish between a genuine customer payment and a scam transfer until it's too late. CYBERA's Approach to Mule Intelligence The challenge of detecting and disrupting mule account networks is what led CYBERA's founders to build their solution. Coming from legal practice and law enforcement, CYBERA's leadership team worked scam cases where they witnessed how recovery becomes impossible once funds move through the financial system. They realized that money mule networks represent a central vulnerability in the scam economy, one that banks had limited visibility into. Today, CYBERA helps banks and payment networks disrupt scams at the point where funds are extracted. CYBERA's AI-powered Scam Engagement System generates intelligence on bank accounts and payment endpoints actively used by scam networks. Unlike probabilistic risk scoring, CYBERA verifies each account, providing evidence and contextual metadata to enable proactive prevention across both internal accounts and outbound payments while minimizing false positives. CYBERA supports two core use cases: On-Us Mule Detection , which helps identify mule accounts held at your institution that are already linked to confirmed scam activity. This enables early detection and disruption of high-risk accounts, reducing downstream fraud, repeat victimization, and regulatory exposure within a bank’s accountholders. Off-Us Screening , which screens...