Nigeria tops Sumsub Global Fraud league table

Ahead of the Paris Olympic Games this summer, global full-cycle verification platform, Sumsub has put together a report dubbed ‘2024 Fraudlympics’, indicating that Nigeria is the country with the highest spike in fraud rates in the world, across a range of fraud categories and industries.

Also in the top five with Nigeria are China, Indonesia, Turkey and Brazil in that order.

Per the report, the various categories of fraud include:

• Fraud by type: identity theft, forced verification, deepfakes
• Fraud by document: ID fraud – via proof of address, driving licence, passport, ID card
• Fraud by industry: iGaming, crypto, and fintech

Based on client verification data, Sumsub compared internal figures from H1 2024 with the same period in 2023. Countries that experienced the highest growth rates in each were awarded gold medals, with trailing nations given ‘silver’ and ‘bronze.’

Nigeria received the highest number of medals across all categories and was declared the ‘winner,’ followed by China and Indonesia in second and third place, respectively.

Global total medals rankings:

According to Sumsub’s leaderboard, Nigeria received three gold medals, with the highest fraud growth rates for identity theft (748%) and forced verification (1,091%), as well as the highest growth rates in the crypto sector (1,056%).

China and Indonesia both received three total medals, including one gold medal each in deepfake fraud (964%) and identity theft (748%), respectively.

However, China ranked ‘higher’ than Indonesia after finishing second in ID card fraud (367%) combined with an increase in fraud in crypto (318%). This compares to Indonesia’s second place in driving licence fraud (325%) and third place in crypto fraud growth (275%).

Turkey came second in forced verification (652%) and third in both identity theft (390%) and driving licence fraud (315%), while Brazil led in fintech industry fraud rises (918%), with Afghanistan leading in passport fraud (522%).

“At Sumsub, we analyse new fraud data at various points throughout the year, including our annual Sumsub Identity Fraud Report towards the end of the year. Ahead of the competition, we wanted to raise awareness about fraud trends in a light-hearted way, while still highlighting the serious concerns,” said Vitaly Gribanov, Brand & Creative Director at Sumsub. “Fraud techniques are becoming increasingly sophisticated and prevalent across different business sectors. As this continues, we remain committed to raising awareness so firms can adapt and mitigate risks.”

Fraud tactics continue to evolve in 2024, with one of the main trends being AI-powered, fabricated audio and video content – ‘deepfakes’. For example, recent internal data revealed a 245% YoY surge in global deepfake fraud cases. As AI technology advances, deepfake-based fraud is expected to become more widespread and harder to detect.

“The number and quality of sophisticated fraud types, such as deepfakes, are increasing and evolving daily worldwide. Even with the most advanced technology, it’s becoming much harder to distinguish between a deepfake and reality. The only way forward is to combat AI-fraud with AI-powered solutions,” said Pavel Goldman-Kalaydin, Head of AI & ML at Sumsub. “In today’s digital world, know-your-customer (KYC) checks alone, during user onboarding, are not enough. The industry requires a holistic approach to combat the rise of fraud across every stage of the user journey. For businesses, the best protection is a multi-layered anti-fraud solution with various checks along the whole customer lifecycle.”

For more information on the Sumsub Fraudlympics 2024, please visit, https://sumsub.com/fraudlympics