Your Phone. Their Payday.

A single scam text can open the back door to your bank account — and you might never get your money back. In this episode of Daylight Robbery, we reveal how spoofed SMS messages from trusted senders like Australia Post or your bank are being used in sophisticated scams that banks fail to stop. Katrina clicked one fake Australia Post link. Her Chinese bank stopped the charge — but scammers still drained £33,000 Great British Pounds from an HSBC account opened in her name. HSBC is now under investigation by ASIC for failing to detect or act on 950 different Australian HSBC spoofing frauds. Katrina, however, has not been asked any questions nor had any reimbursement.Furkan, a Melbourne tradie, got scammed through messages inside his ANZ text thread. He was tricked into sending $58,000 to scam mule accounts held at ANZ. Despite a key AFCA ruling — the “Mr T decision” — the ombudsman conciliated just a $6300 reimbursement for his $58,000 loss. If the bank successfully recovered Furkan's money (which you would assume they could do, given it went through their own accounts) they are not obliged to tell Furkan how much they recovered or which accounts it was recovered from - it would simply 'turn up' in his bank account - no transparency, no accountability.

Key moments

0:04 – How one SMS can lead to disaster

1:21 – Katrina’s scam begins

2:47 – £33,000 stolen from her fake HSBC account

5:57 – Sunni Wan: another HSBC victim, $50k gone

6:23 – AFCA's “Mr T” ruling changes the game

8:36 – Furkan’s $58k ANZ loss

12:24 – ANZ fraud detection activates after the scam

16:45 – Breached data fuels the scam boom

18:32 – Why scam laws won’t protect you until 2026

19:30 – Corporate crime called out

Watch now and find out how scammers slip into your messages — and steal your future.

When a middle-aged mum gets riled, watch out. Here's why I made Daylight Robbery. I've chatted to more than 35 financial crime victims in Australia. Every story is different. Every story is complex and extremely difficult to make sense of. That's because the criminals are smarter than governments, banks, telcos and big tech companies. They push the boundaries, move faster and have a raft of cheap tech tools to do their dirty work. Our police can't keep up. And the victims carry the blame for the loss.

They call romance scams pig butchering - a brutal name which means ‘killing pig game’. Australia is experiencing real estate butchering: the slaughter of our property market through scams and fraud committed on Australian banking platforms. Our houses are the second most expensive in the world and overseas crime gangs know it's a cinch to steal home deposits and settlement funds, especially now the home-buying process has moved away from bank cheques to online banking through PEXA. Targeted spear phishing attacks are relatively simple given how much personal information is available on the dark and light web - Artificial Intelligence allows all breached data sets to be rinsed and mixed and matched by searching for key homebuyer terms like “contract” or “settlement date” and then homebuyers about to exchange funds are targeted with payment misdirection scams. Despite a fall in reported scams from $2.7 billion of losses in 2023 to $2 billion of losses in 2024, these types of email and payment redirections frauds rose by 66%last year - and why wouldn’t they? Banks don’t stop it, because they know they can blame the customer. The payment platforms are not accountable or transparent about how they recover the money and in some cases the banks charge interest on the losses to make even more profit from the crime. Police sometimes investigate, but it takes months of their resources to catch the mule, rather than the big crime boss overseas who receives the funds.

00:00 – Intro: What is Pig Butchering?

00:36 – Ken Gamble: The most profitable crime on earth

00:43 – Australia’s housing market ripe for scamming

02:51 – Louis' Story: $109K stolen in a fake PEXA scam

04:53 – How AI spear phishing targets home buyers

06:53 – Banks used to refund victims—now they profit

07:33 – Louis: “Banks have no incentive to stop scams”

08:24 – Strange coincidences: Louis’ backstory

10:09 – Levin’s Story: $91K stolen & silenced by gag order

13:54 – Sarah & Laine: Lost $252K buying a dream home

16:44 – ANZ’s failure: From help to blame

18:08 – Homeless risk: Living out of boxes after the scam

19:28 – Hope & Tom: $250K lost while 34 weeks pregnant

21:01 – Why banks don’t stop it: Pure profit

22:01 – AFCA and blame shifting

22:42 – Louis: “I faced a senior bank lawyer alone”

23:20 – ASIC, AFCA, laws that should protect—but don’t

25:00 – CommBank CEO: “Email is a grotesque waste of time”

25:32 – Louis: “Safe banking ads feel gut-wrenching”

26:12 – Next time: Fake AusPost texts and how they led to a HSBC payday

#RealEstateScam #HomeBuyerScam #PEXA #BankFraud #SpearPhishing #AFCA #FinancialCrime #DaylightRobbery #AustraliaHousingCrisis #MortgageScam #Commbank #ANZ #NAB #ScamAwareness #Cybercrime #MuleAccounts

Meet the woman determined to wreak vengeance upon the scammers who stole her half a million dollar divorce settlement. Jo O'Brien took the unprecedented step of suing the bank and knocking on the door of her scammers to return the $500,000 she'd been conned into believing would be an AMP term deposit.

When finance professionals and stockbrokers lose the battle against fraud, scams and mule bank accounts, what has to change? Australia's banking system is riddled with mules willing to rent or sell their bank account for as little as $50. Predators at the top of the crime chain exploit legal loopholes in AUSTRAC regulations, electronic payments, and bank policies to stay ahead of the law and target Australia's wealthiest people. This episode explores the multi-million dollar losses some Australians face when trying to open a term deposit or invest their retirement money. Many of us falsely believe older people lose money because they are grappling with how to use technology, but that ship sailed long ago. Older Australians are targeted for their assets in sophisticated social engineering rackets that are getting better, bigger and bolder as Artificial Intelligence, poor banking and telco security and scam factories enable it. We've investigated cases where people have been defrauded by as much as $3 million to $6 million trying to transact through Australia's banking and payments system.There are even fraud universities where the old scammers and malware hackers from the 1990s and 2000s are educating a new technical elite on how to create new scams, shams and frauds that work. With personal information leaked across the web, it's simple for 'spear phishing' to personally target individuals with just the right bait to get you on the hook to lose everything.Older Australians have been the biggest losers in Australia's scam crisis, mostly because they have more money to lose than younger people. Vicious trading scams use deep fakes to lure people in with a social media ad. When the regulators close them down, they simply re-badge the front end with a fancy new name and start up under a new name and impersonate a new celebrity, financial expert or even Prime Ministers.In this episode: 0:01 - Finance professionals and system failure. Who foots the bill? 0:40 - Ken Gamble: This is the most profitable crime on Earth - high profit, low risk and no Australian Government is willing to chase the overseas gangs responsible. 1:27 - Kim and Kessada Sawyer: Lost $2.5 million 2:17 - The scams targeting Australians: Fake term deposits, AI trading, romance cons. 3:13 - Sylvia Chou: Chartered accountant loses $2.6 million: Westpac & NAB chase her for debt. 5:16 - Australian Banking Association: Scams don't come from banks. Alrighty, then 6:42 - Banks return money to scammers! How legal loopholes let criminals win. 7:51 - Cyber expert Simon Smith: There's NO protection. If you transfer money, its gone. 9:23 - Ken Gamble: Banks are hiding to avoid liability. 12:47 - Investment scams: Fake trading platforms, AI-generated voices, and deepfake Elon Musk ads. 18:43 - Bank limits on crypto too little, too late. ABA claims they reduce fraud, but victims disagree. 20:58 - Gary Meachen: Lost $400,000+ to a fake crypto platform. 22:41 - Fraud University: How scammers are trained like professionals. 23:30 - War and money: From WWII counterfeiting to modern-day financial warfare. 24:38 - Final thoughts: Silence helps scammers win. Exposing what happens is the awareness everyone needs to improve the system

When mates turn into transnational digital bank robbers, the fallout is inevitable. The case of O'Brien vs Supercheap Security exposes a global trade in mule bank accounts fueling digital fraud, money laundering, and financial crime.  In this episode of Daylight Robbery, we unpack how Muhammad Ali Waheed and Hassan Mujtaba Mehdi orchestrated a bank fraud scheme that stole $1.36 million from Australian victims—including half a million dollars from lead plaintiff Jo O'Brien. With insights from cybercrime experts like Ken Gamble, Dan Halpin and Simon Smith, the episode reveals how complex transnational fraud and business associates operate with near impunity while banks look the other way. Who’s really to blame? The criminals? The banks? Or the legal system that enables it all …

Mark Uytendaal lost his life savings in a fake AMP term deposit scam. His story is just the tip of the iceberg. Australian banking laws and weak consumer protections enable organised crime syndicates to plunder everyday Australians’ savings—money meant for homes, retirement, and looking after ageing parents. Banks allow these stolen funds to be laundered overseas, often never to be recovered. This episode dives into the shocking NSW Supreme Court case O’Brien v Supercheap Security. The case reveals how bank impersonation scams have become a powerful tool for transnational crime gangs, operating with impunity, while overwhelmed police and dispute resolution services struggle to keep up. Mark and his mother Kerry lost their dream duplex. Jo O’Brien had her $500,000 divorce settlement stolen. These victims took unprecedented legal action, initially suing NAB for hosting the fraudulent mule account in the name of Supercheap Security. They lost that action, but then took action against three defendants—Hassan Mehdi, Supercheap Security and NAB— to win the case, with the bank struck out to shield them from explaining what happened. Justice Nixon ordering Supercheap Security’s director, Hassan Mehdi, to repay the victims’ losses, interest, and legal costs. Here’s the kicker: Mehdi hasn’t paid a cent, owning no property in Australia and facing a bankruptcy process that could take years. The banks don’t have to pay a thing. Victorian Police can’t do a thing. Victims are left holding the (very empty) bag.

From gullible to guilty: how a work-from-home job scam stole $255,000 and turned a Melbourne mum into a money launderer for Chinese organised crime scammer, Neala. Discover the dark world of socially engineered job scams—a growing crisis costing victims billions. Discover how manipulative Neala used WhatsApp and deep knowledge of how Aussie banks work to steal from people she recruits through work-from-home job ads on Facebook.

Organised criminals are mimicking banks so convincingly that even finance professionals fall victim to their digital bank robberies. This gripping episode uncovers the extraordinary stories of Australians like Jacomi and David, who fought back against the odds to reclaim their stolen fortunes.

Jacomi is a finance professional conned out of $760K after her husband’s death. Her relentless pursuit—helped by media and a Treasury insider—led to a miraculous recovery.

David spent 5 years to recover $1M lost to a fraudulent investment scheme, exposing banks that ignored regulator warnings.

Despite the trauma, these victims uncovered systemic failures in fraud prevention, and their resilience is a wake-up call for us all. Learn how to protect yourself and uncover the flaws in Australia’s fight against financial crime.

We lift the lid on the hi tech heists stealing billions from unsuspecting Australians, targeted for their valuable real estate and savings. Daylight Robbery explores the raft of digital bank robberies happening across Australian banks. We interview investigators, victims and finance experts to explain how shady scam syndicates operate across borders to commit digital bank robbery at an industrial scale. We lift the lid on the complex web of legitimate companies using sock puppets, tech-savvy mules and artful forgeries to financially ruin Australians and take their hard-earned money offshore to be used to fund war, human trafficking, sex crimes and worse.