DARK
ECONOMY
The Dark Economy
encompasses every illegal
or unreported sale of a good or service anywhere on earth.
World Bank data and researcher estimates put the value of the Dark Economy globally at
$15 trillion a year – nearly 14% of global GDP.
Story
While authorized push payment (APP) fraud — more commonly referred to as “scams” — now, deservedly, dominates the headlines as both the fastest-growing and most costly fraud type, good old-fashioned account takeover (ATO) fraud has not gone away. Those perpetrating it — gaining control of accounts through a variety of means to execute transactions themselves — have also evolved in many of the same ways scammers have.
Report
Story
There are many ways to launder money, both within and outside of the legitimate financial system. But at banks, new accounts opened with stolen, purchased, or synthetic identities for the explicit purpose of committing crimes play a massive role. This is known as account opening (AO) fraud, and it’s costing both governments and financial institutions billions.
A survey of 800 manager-level-or-above fraud-management, anti-money laundering, and risk and compliance professionals at financial institutions in 17 countries on five continents found the majority of respondents believed criminals were more sophisticated at laundering money than banks were at detecting that laundering.
"Access to the legitimate financial system
is a cornerstone of transnational crime.
Shell companies, offshore accounts, and digital banking services allow criminals to obscure their identities and the origin of their funds, while securely transferring billions of dollars in mere minutes."
- Matt O’Neill, former U.S. Secret Service
Special Agent in Charge of Cyber
Throughout 2025, this page will take a closer look at some crimes very familiar to the world’s fraud fighters – account opening fraud (AO), account takeover fraud (ATO), voice scams, romance scams, investor scams, and more – but likely outside of the average consumer’s realm of awareness. We’ll then explore the relationship between these cybercrimes and the rest of the Dark Economy, showcasing how money laundering accounts serve as the hub connecting AO, ATO, and a wide array of scams to the drug trafficking, illegal arms sales, terror financing, human smuggling, and laundry list of other crimes that receive front-page and top-of-newscast coverage every day.