Insights

Financial Fraud Kill Chain may be used to recover fraudulent international wire transfers

Printable PDF: SafeAlert-Financial Fraud Kill Chain-SA16

 

The Financial Fraud Kill Chain (FFKC) is a process that may be utilized for recovering large international wire transfers stolen from victim U.S. bank accounts. Created by the FBI, the FFKC utilizes the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s relationship with the Egmont Group, as well as law enforcement placements in countries around the world, to try to prevent the successful withdrawal of funds by criminal actors.  


The FFKC can only be implemented if the fraudulent wire transfer meets the following criteria:
  • the wire transfer is $50,000 or greater;
  • the wire transfer is international;
  • a SWIFT recall notice has been initiated; and
  • the wire transfer has occurred within the last 72 hours.
Even if the wire does not meet the above criteria, it should still be reported to the FBI as soon as it is detected. The FBI may be able to tie the matter to other investigations to recover funds or hold the responsible parties accountable.

In order to initiate the FFKC, banks must provide very specific details to their local FBI office, including a summary of the incident, victim information, beneficiary names, account numbers, and any additional information that might be useful to their recovery efforts. The FBI requests that the outcome be reported back to the field office.

A complaint should also be filed with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) online at www.ic3.gov.
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