This world is crawling with crooks.

Organised crime is worth up to $5 trillion each year, and a huge chunk of that flows from extortion: the art of extracting money or property from people with threats of worse outcomes.

In the online era, extortion takes many forms. Some scams prey on victims’ greed or financial desperation, some on fear, some on confusion — and some on all three. Often, the threat comes from an ‘offstage’ villain: a fictional hacker or crook that the real crook — the person talking to you — pretends to be saving you from.

Know your extortionists — before they know you.

Extortion scams take many different forms, but they all rely on remarkably similar human behaviours: manipulating fear, urgency, trust and confusion to pressure people into making bad decisions.
So let’s take a look at the Big Five Scams: the major scam tactics ruling the extortion jungle right now.

The Big Five scams

1. The ‘Safe Account’ scam

This extortion technique capitalises on fear and fake urgency — it’s also called the ‘your money is at risk’ scam. The scammer typically claims to be a government official, a police officer, a bank employee, or a tech support worker. They tell you that your personal bank or investment accounts have been hacked, and they offer a last-minute way to save the money: by withdrawing cash or using it to buy physical gold. They promise to store these rescued assets in a safe account — and send a ‘courier’ to collect the cash or gold from the victim.

Hmmm… who would fall for that?

You’d be surprised by how many people do. It may seem outlandish that anyone would physically hand over large sums of cash or gold to a complete stranger. But when faced with an outlandish crisis, beyond our usual reference points, we can end up doing outlandish things. This scam is often deployed against victims who are older than 60, who may not be up to speed on bank security, and who are easily intimidated by authoritative-sounding people using techy language. They may also be especially anxious about the safety of their financial nest eggs.

What to remember:

Nobody with good intentions will ever ask you to buy gold, withdraw cash, or move money to a ‘safe’ account, or give your valuables to a courier. So the person asking you to do anything like this is not a Sappi colleague, or a bank staffer, not a government official, or a law enforcement officer. Hence, this person is a crook. Don’t respond to any approaches they make.

What to remember:

If you’re being spam-bombed, phone your authentic Sappi IT support desk. Don’t share your screen unless you initiated the chat via approved Sappi support channels.

3. The Redirect scam

This is an old-school ID fraud scam which doesn’t necessarily prey on fear. The scammer simply impersonates one of a company’s regular payees or vendors who routinely receive EFTs (Electronic funds transfer) or wire transfers. (They do this either by hacking into the payee’s email account, or by ‘spoofing’ or simulating their email address and signature.)

Next, they email the staff member who usually processes payments to the impersonated payee, asking them to make an ad hoc transfer and — crucially — to redirect payment by ‘updating’ the recipient’s bank account details. Sometimes there’s a note of urgency. But sometimes it’s all super casual.

What to remember:

Any request to change or update a vendor’s stored business bank account should immediately prompt verification. Business account numbers don’t expire and don’t require routine updates like personal credit cards.

Even if the addresses do match, don’t comply. Refer the request to a supervisor for a second opinion. And phone the payee using a trusted number — not one listed in the suspicious email — to verify the transaction. Ask the payee to explain exactly why they are changing their bank account and requesting a quick payment.

The insider trap

In a financial world apparently rigged with insider information, many victims are easily convinced that spectacular returns are out there and being kept a secret. Boringly sensible investments seem like a loser’s game.

So, the victim wants in — and buys in, at first with small amounts. Soon he or she will be rewarded with some modest ‘profit’ payouts to build confidence. Once a big investment is made, a bit of traditional extortion can happen (e.g. ‘taxes’ or ‘fees’ need to be paid to release profits).

But then the ‘slaughter’ moment arrives: the magical disappearance of the contact, plus the entire ‘crypto platform’, plus the victim’s money.

What to remember:

If an online stranger encourages you to invest, move money, use crypto, or download a trading app, don’t comply. Stop, step away and do your research. Consider it a scam until you have independently verified that it isn’t. Remember: people who have genuinely found a way to make lucrative investments have no good reason to share their secrets with strangers.

5. Authority impersonation

This kind of scam uses sophisticated techniques to impersonate authority figures — such as police, tax or government officials, banks, auditors or executives — to compel victims to part with money.

Fear of authority and a sense of desperate urgency are the emotions exploited. A victim might be told by ‘police’ or ‘auditors’ that they have been falsely accused of a crime — but that their name will be cleared instantly if they make a cash payment. Or they might be told by a ‘tax official’ that tax penalties are owed and must be paid immediately to prevent arrest. Personal information that the scammers have already gathered is used as leverage.

Enter the AI Extortionist

Generative AI tools are adding a convincing gloss to such authority impersonation scams — in the form of deep-fake video clips, documents or voice clips that impersonate real authority figures, who thus appear to be legitimising the extortion. When someone you fear and respect is commanding you to co-operate, it’s hard to say no.

What to remember:

Secrecy is always suspicious. Authority scammers isolate you by ordering you not to speak with your manager, your family or your IT team. Don’t let yourself be isolated.

And remember, cops aren’t robbers. Robbers are robbers — and we report them to the cops.