This is a true story.

A friend’s wife received a call from someone claiming to be from the ATO. The caller was aggressive and convincing. He told her that her husband had been arrested for tax fraud and, because of the “seriousness” of the case, the family was now under government surveillance.

Then came the demand: pay $5,000 to secure his release.

She was terrified and only moments away from sending the money.

Scam!

We’ve all seen the headlines. It’s usually a variation of the same story: the “good guys” chasing the “bad guys,” with the villains always appearing to be three steps ahead. For a long time, I never really questioned who those “good guys” actually were—or what they were doing besides playing a permanent game of catch-up.

But my recent work has made me look under the hood of Australia’s new defence system, the reality is far more complex than a simple police chase. To stop a scam today, it takes an entire ecosystem.

Scams are real, and they’re everywhere#

Who hasn’t heard of scams? Many of us have. For most of the lucky ones, it’s just news we’ve heard. It’s not close or personal. But they are very real - In Australia in 2024, people lost $2.7 billion of their hard-earned money to scams.

What exactly is a scam?#

Legally, scams and fraud are different terms. While fraud is broader, scams typically involve two scenarios: