Organized crime networks are using artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance their operations, creating unprecedented challenges for law enforcement, warned Europol in its European Serious Organised Crime Threat Assessment (EU-SOCTA) report.
“Criminal networks have demonstrated the ability to rapidly adapt to new technological solutions,” the report said. “This includes AI, a solution that has transformed the modern world with unprecedented speed and impact. Indeed, the very qualities that make AI revolutionary – accessibility, versatility, and sophistication – have made it an attractive tool for criminals.”
AI’s Role in Cyber Fraud
With expanding complexity and availability, AI and other cutting-edge technologies are being used by criminal networks in an increasingly wide range of illicit uses. Generative AI (GenAI) models, for example, have lowered the cost of entry for digital crime to an incredibly low level. Such technologies enable criminals to craft multilingual messages, easily assault victims globally, design complex malware, and even generate child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
The creation of highly realistic fake media has facilitated criminals to deceive victims, impersonate individuals, and carry out blackmail or discrediting attacks. Voice cloning and real-time video deepfakes with the use of AI also enhance such threats, making it possible to carry out new forms of fraud, extortion, and identity theft.
These technologies are readily available and require little technical expertise, which has fueled a surge in the volume of CSAM available online while at the same time making it increasingly difficult to inspect images and trace perpetrators.
Facilitating Money Laundering
Within financial services, blockchain and cryptocurrencies have been used by criminal actors to conduct payments and facilitate money laundering. Decentralized networks and unregulated exchanges make it difficult to trace these payments.
Cryptocurrency use by crime has extended from cybercrime into traditional crime territory such as narcotics trafficking and migrant smuggling. Furthermore, methods such as cryptojacking—seizing infrastructure for cryptocurrency mining—have developed as emerging crime tactics
The report also highlights that AI allows bad actors to craft more convincing social engineering messages at scale. The technology allows crooks to craft messages in multiple languages and impersonate individuals with highly convincing digital forgeries, enabling large-scale blackmail and financial fraud operations.
The DNA of Organized Crime is Changing
“The very DNA of organized crime is changing,” said Catherine De Bolle, Europol’s executive director. “Criminal networks have evolved into global, technology-driven criminal enterprises, exploiting digital platforms, illicit financial flows, and geopolitical instability to expand their influence.”
“The same qualities that make AI revolutionary – accessibility, adaptability, and sophistication – also make it a powerful tool for criminal networks,” she warned. “These technologies are automating and expanding criminal operations, making them more scalable and harder to detect.”
A Driver of Criminal Efficiency
The report emphasized that AI is becoming a driver of criminal efficiency. “AI’s automation capabilities are transforming the efficiency of criminal operations. From automating phishing campaigns to executing large-scale cyber-attacks, AI enables criminals to achieve more – reach more victims, be more targeted in their approach, and expand their global reach – with fewer resources.”
Researchers said bad actors leverage AI for attack automation, social engineering, and slipping through security nets, making cyber-attacks more scalable and efficient. Also, the emergence of fully autonomous AI could lay the foundation for entirely AI-controlled criminal networks, marking a new era in organized crime.
“As existing technologies continue to improve and key emerging technologies mature, criminal networks will have access to a broad range of increasingly powerful capabilities,” the report said. “Today’s criminals have turned tools such as CCTV surveillance, chips, drones, GPS, and 3D printing to their advantage.”
AI Expedites Social Engineering
Evan Dornbush, former NSA cybersecurity expert, expressed that while AI does not necessarily make scams more creative, it does allow scammers to quickly generate and refine fraud messages to make them more convincing.
“The value of AI is that it makes things faster. Not more creative, inventive, or persistent. Faster,” Dornbush stated. “But speed is irrelevant if we cannot disrupt the attacker’s profit potential. AI is decreasing the costs for criminals, and the community needs novel ways to either decrease their payouts, increase their operating budgets, or both.”
Making Cybercrime Accessible
In response to the report, Lawrence Pingree, VP at Dispersive, cautioned that AI is not only making cyberattacks faster but more accessible to a wider range of individuals. He argues that AI could eventually allow almost anyone to develop and execute scalable attacks.
“The scariest part is that AI eventually leads anyone to be able to ask it to author new exploits or carry out scalable attacks like this one. This is just the beginning,” he warned.
Pingree also pointed out that AI’s increasing depth and ability to execute multi-stage attacks reliably will be particularly concerning when smaller, more covert AI models reach high levels of efficiency. “Couple these types of attacks with Deepfake technology, and you create a very scary multi-domain socially aware, social engineering malware,” he added.
A Game Changer for Cybercriminals
Willy Leichter, CMO at AppSOC and an expert in AI governance and application security described AI as a “game-changer” for organized crime. He explained that AI enables fraudsters to scale and personalize their phishing attacks with unprecedented effectiveness.
He also stressed that while legitimate AI applications require monitoring for accuracy and quality, criminals do not need perfection to deceive users and bypass security filters.
“Criminals don’t need perfection to break through security filters and fool even skeptical end-users,” he said, urging the security community to keep pace with evolving AI-driven threats. “It’s imperative that we keep up, applying equally powerful AI tools for defensive purposes. This is not an arms race that we can afford to fall behind.”
Josh is a Content writer at Bora. He graduated with a degree in Journalism in 2021 and has a background in cybersecurity PR. He's written on a wide range of topics, from AI to Zero Trust, and is particularly interested in the impacts of cybersecurity on the wider economy.
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