Cartels Reportedly Using AI to Expand Operations into Financial Fraud and Human Trafficking

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is reportedly using AI to expand its financial fraud and human trafficking operations, coercing individuals into illegal activities under the guise of legitimate jobs. INTERPOL warns that this integration of AI into criminal enterprises is a growing trend among cartels across Europe, Asia, and Africa as well.

Risk classification

• Primary risk domain: 4 Malicious actors
• Primary risk subdomain: 4.3 Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation

The Jalisco cartel and other crime groups are using AI to conduct targeted financial fraud, impersonation, and scams (such as timeshare and romance scams) to exploit specific victims for financial gain.

Causal factors

• Entity: Human
• Intent: Intentional
• Timing: Post-deployment

The risk is driven by human malicious actors (cartels) intentionally deploying and utilizing AI tools post-deployment to scale their fraudulent operations and human trafficking schemes.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 1 Unacceptable

Unacceptable Risk: The report describes 'exploitative systems targeting vulnerabilities' and 'AI used for subliminal manipulation or behavioral influence leading to harm,' specifically cartels using AI to conduct human trafficking and highly manipulative financial fraud.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI system: None named
• AI purpose: Chatbot; Writing Assistant
• Behaviour type: Tool
• Alleged developer: Unknown AI developers
• Alleged deployer: Organized crime groups, Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Cartels
• Alleged harmed parties: Individuals coerced into criminal activities, Human trafficking victims, Financial fraud victims

Harm severity

Severity ratings are based on this scale.

Highest direct severity in any category: Minor. Severity is scored from Negligible to Catastrophic in each harm category, for harm the reports describe as caused directly or indirectly by the AI system.

• Physical: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Infrastructure: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Property: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Financial: direct Negligible, indirect Substantial
• Environmental: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Malicious content: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Differential treatment: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Civil rights: direct Negligible, indirect Substantial
• Democracy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Privacy: direct Negligible, indirect Minor
• Psychological: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Epistemic: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

Financial

Reported: The report explicitly describes significant financial losses, noting one timeshare scam victim who lost more than $1,000,000.

Indirectly caused: One victim of the timeshare scam lost more than $1,000,000 due to cartel fraud operations.

Inferred additional harm: Given the global scale of these cartel operations across multiple continents, total financial losses are likely in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.

Malicious content

Reported: The report describes the use of AI to generate deceptive communications, romance scams, and impersonation messages.

Directly caused: AI was used to generate deceptive messages, cold texts, and scam scripts to target victims.

Inferred additional harm: Large volumes of malicious spam and phishing messages were likely distributed to thousands of potential victims globally.

Civil rights

Reported: The report explicitly describes human trafficking and forced labor operations run by the cartel.

Indirectly caused: The cartel forced human trafficking victims, who believed they were taking legitimate jobs, to engage in illegal activities and commit financial fraud.

Inferred additional harm: Numerous individuals are likely held in forced labor conditions and subjected to severe human rights violations by the cartel to run these AI-enabled scam centers.

Privacy

Reported: The report mentions cartels forcing victims to try to access other people's financial information.

Indirectly caused: Cartel members targeted beachfront timeshare owners and cold-called individuals to access their private financial information.

Inferred additional harm: The personal and financial data of thousands of individuals was likely compromised or accessed without authorization during these scam operations.

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 1
• People reportedly harmed: 2
• People reportedly exposed: 2

Potential causes

Management

• Cartel Operational Expansion: Cartel leadership adopts AI to maximize financial fraud profits.
• Synergy of Trafficking and Fraud: Management leverages human trafficking to scale AI-driven scam centers.

Technology

• AI-Powered Impersonation Tools: Cartels use AI to scale and automate personalized impersonation scams.
• Automated Communication Scaling: AI tools enable mass outreach through automated text and voice channels.

Data Inputs

• Target Contact Databases: Scammers input victim phone numbers and timeshare details to target them.
• Personal Information Harvesting: AI models process harvested financial and personal data to tailor scams.

Human Factors

• Trust in Cold Outreach: Victims respond to benign texts, allowing scammers to build rapport.
• Coercion of Trafficked Labor: Trafficked victims are forced by cartels to run AI-assisted scam centers.
• Exploitation of Human Vulnerability: Scammers exploit greed and loneliness to manipulate victims.

Process and Methods

• Job Recruitment Deception: Cartels lure victims with fake legitimate jobs to run fraud operations.
• Multi-Stage Scam Workflows: Using multi-step rapport building before requesting money.

Regulatory Environment

• Lack of Global AI Oversight: No international regulations prevent cartels from leveraging AI tools.
• Weak Telecom Filtering: Inadequate telecom regulations allow spoofed numbers and spam texts.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: Medium
• Reason for confidence: The report provides a high-level overview from INTERPOL regarding cartel adoption of AI for fraud and trafficking, including a specific anecdote of a timeshare scam victim losing $1,000,000. However, it lacks technical details about the specific AI models, software, or deployment methods used by the cartels, requiring us to infer the exact role of AI in these operations.
• Ambiguities identified: The report does not specify which AI technologies (e.g., LLMs, voice cloning, deepfakes) are being used, nor does it detail how the AI directly facilitates the human trafficking aspect beyond scaling the fraud operations.
• Alternative interpretations: The AI's role could be interpreted as minor automation (like simple templates) rather than advanced generative AI, though INTERPOL's framing suggests a significant technological shift.
• Missing information: Specific AI models or tools used by the cartels, technical descriptions of how AI is integrated into their workflow, and concrete data on the number of trafficking victims forced into these AI-enabled roles.

INTERPOL reports that global criminal organizations, notably the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, are integrating generative AI to scale financial fraud and human trafficking. Cartels lure victims with fake jobs and force them into labor to run AI-enabled scam operations. This represents an evolved capability in transnational crime, posing a substantial threat to human rights and societal stability globally.

• Overall national security impact: Substantial
• Scope: Multiple nations
• Primary target: No clear primary
• Other affected: Mexico, Europe, Asia, Africa
• Alleged perpetrator: Jalisco New Generation Cartel

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. The integration of AI by cartels represents an ongoing strategic trend and capability expansion rather than an immediate, acute crisis.
• Autonomy: Human-supervised. AI systems automate text generation and outreach, but human trafficking victims and cartel members supervise and direct the operations.
• Novelty: Evolved capability. Organized crime groups are evolving established cyber-fraud and human trafficking techniques by integrating generative AI tools to scale operations.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. No kinetic attacks, autonomous weapons deployment, or critical infrastructure manipulation are indicated in the report.
• Information security: Minor. AI is used to scale deceptive communications and impersonation, but these are criminal fraud schemes rather than state-sponsored information warfare.
• Sovereignty: Minor. Transnational criminal organizations are expanding operations, but the AI use does not directly compromise government decision-making, elections, or state borders.
• Economic security: Minor. Substantial financial fraud is reported, including a victim losing over $1,000,000, but it does not target critical financial infrastructure or strategic national technologies.
• Societal stability: Substantial. The integration of AI to scale human trafficking and force victims into coerced labor to run scam operations constitutes a substantial threat to human rights and societal stability.