What is the FBI's Financial Fraud Kill Chain, and how do I start it?

What does the FBI's brochure say?

The brochure is about transfers to accounts in the United States. For money sent abroad, FinCEN runs a separate program.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center's Recovery Asset Team (RAT) was established in February 2018 to streamline communication with financial institutions and assist FBI field offices with the freezing of funds for victims who made transfers to domestic accounts under fraudulent pretenses.

If criteria are met, transaction details are forwarded to the identified point of contact at recipient bank to notify of fraudulent activity and request freezing of account.

File a detailed complaint with www.ic3.gov.

Do I meet the criteria?

The brochure says the details are forwarded if criteria are met, and does not print them. Do not wait to find out. File the complaint and call your bank at the same time.

How often does it work?

The brochure gives that figure under Success to Date, for 1 January to 31 December 2025. It does not say how the rate is worked out.

Recovery Rate: 61%

What can an outside reading tell you after a payment fraud?

An outside reading cannot see your mailboxes, so it cannot tell you whether someone signed in to one.

It can show three things that bear on how a fraud like this reaches a firm: whether your DMARC record tells mail servers to refuse mail forged in your name, which look-alike domains of yours are registered, and which addresses at your domain are listed in breach data from other services.

Where do I go next?

• The first hour, United States
• FinCEN's Rapid Response Program
• What to tell law enforcement