AI Tools Are Making Cybercrime Easier For Amateur Fraudsters, Interpol Warns

Artificial intelligence tools are lowering the complexity to attempt cybercrimes and helping inexperienced fraudsters launch large-scale scams, according to a senior Interpol official.

Neal Jetton, director of cybercrime at Interpol, said AI-powered tools are making phishing campaigns, impersonation scams and online fraud easier to carry out, even for people with little technical expertise. Speaking in an interview with Politico, Jetton said commercially available AI chatbots and cybercrime services are allowing “beginners” to commit fraud “at scale.”

“What makes it so difficult is that these tools allow pretty much beginners … to actually be able to go and commit fraud at scale,” Jetton said.

Interpol said the global cost of cybercrime has climbed sharply in recent years, with the European Union estimating annual losses at roughly €5.5 trillion. The agency has increasingly linked online fraud to organized crime groups, human trafficking operations and militant financing networks operating across several regions.

The warning comes as governments in Europe, North America and Asia continue dealing with cyberattacks tied to geopolitical tensions and armed conflicts, including attacks on infrastructure, government systems and financial networks linked to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Security agencies have repeatedly warned that criminal networks and state-aligned actors are using similar digital tactics, including phishing operations, ransomware and disinformation campaigns.

Jetton said organized crime groups are increasingly outsourcing technical work through AI tools and cybercrime marketplaces that sell ready-made software for phishing attacks and online scams. Those services include “phishing-as-a-service” kits that allow criminals to build and launch fraudulent campaigns without advanced hacking knowledge.

According to a March 2026 threat assessment published by Interpol, AI-enhanced fraud operations are now four-and-a-half times more profitable than traditional fraud methods. The report said criminal groups are using generative AI to automate phishing campaigns, produce convincing fake identities and create deepfake audio and video for impersonation scams. Interpol also warned that some extremist groups in Africa have used online fraud schemes to help fund operations.

Jetton said that AI systems are not creating entirely new crimes but are accelerating existing criminal activity such as phishing and financial scams.

“What we’ve seen is that AI has allowed the proliferation, expansion of crime that’s already been existent,” he said.

Authorities have also raised concerns about scam compounds operating in parts of Southeast Asia, where trafficking victims are allegedly forced to conduct online fraud schemes targeting people around the world. Britain recently imposed sanctions tied to a Cambodia-based scam compound that officials said was connected to large-scale online fraud and human trafficking operations, according to Reuters.

A separate assessment by Europol warned that artificial intelligence is rapidly expanding the reach of organized crime groups across Europe. The agency said AI tools are helping criminals automate cyberattacks, create realistic impersonations and scale multilingual scams with greater precision. Europol Executive Director Catherine De Bolle said the technology was making criminal operations “more precise and devastating,” according to The Associated Press.

Cybersecurity analysts have also pointed to the growing use of AI-generated phishing emails that remove spelling mistakes and language errors that once exposed many scams. A TechRadar report said Interpol investigators found that criminals are increasingly relying on generative AI to improve social engineering campaigns and create more convincing deepfake content.

Interpol said recent operations targeting cybercrime networks have already resulted in arrests and infrastructure takedowns across multiple regions. In March, the organization announced that an international operation involving 72 countries led to the removal of more than 45,000 malicious IP addresses and servers connected to phishing, ransomware and malware activity. The operation resulted in 94 arrests and ongoing investigations into more than 100 suspects.

Jetton said concerns around advanced AI systems have become a major topic among cybersecurity executives and government officials as authorities try to respond to increasingly sophisticated online threats.