US$200 million in loans were stolen from fake students by AI, and the U.S. Department of Justice is urgently investigating

IT House reported on November 1 that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the results of “Operation Ghostbusters” on October 31, local time. The operation was mainly to investigate widespread student loan fraud. According to the agency, bad actors used stolen identities to apply for student loans and used artificial intelligence to complete the applications to make it appear that fake students were taking online courses. While schools receive most of the student loan proceeds, some of the remaining balances flow into scammers' bank accounts and are transferred overseas. On the other hand, those victims who didn't go to college were inexplicably saddled with student loans. Several community colleges and universities across the United States began to suspect fraud in the Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) program in 2021. Estimates show that the U.S. government lost more than 200 million U.S. dollars as a result of this behavior (IT House Note: The current exchange rate is approximately 1.334 billion yuan). Currently, there are more than 40 open fraud cases involving 26 FBI field offices and 20 U.S. attorneys' offices. The Justice Department named it Operation Ghostbusters, and five people have been indicted. “Today, we are announcing the first results of Operation Ghostbusters – a nationwide effort to disrupt significant fraud schemes targeting federal student aid, low-income Americans and the American taxpayer,” Colin M. McDonald, Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, said in a statement.