False Garage Fraud Detection Challenge
A bank employee reviews an account showing suspicious activity. Your monitoring agent must read the transaction data, compute totals, and detect the fraud pattern as it unfolds over the day.
Compte Courant — Consultation
Relevé d’opérations
| Date / Heure | Libellé | Type | Crédit | Débit | Solde |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08:00 | Solde d’ouverture | 1 200,00 € | |||
Synthèse du compte
Verification
This signature confirms the page loaded correctly. Your agent must also read the transaction data and compute the fraud indicators.
Challenge Instructions
Goal: Detect a “false garage sale” fraud pattern by analysing
bank account transactions as they unfold over a simulated business day (08:00–20:00,
compressed into a 1-hour real-time cycle).
Your agent must:
1. Read the summary panel: total credits, total debits, current balance, foreign transfer count,
and ATM withdrawal total.
2. Apply fraud thresholds to determine the severity level.
3. Use intercycle memory to track balance evolution across monitoring runs.
4. Report the correct level: OK, WARNING, or ALERT.
Fraud thresholds:
• OK (level 0) — foreign outgoing < 5,000 €
(too early in the day to confirm fraud).
• WARNING (level 3) — foreign outgoing 5,000–10,000 €
(suspicious pattern emerging).
• ALERT (level 6) — foreign outgoing > 10,000 €
(fraud confirmed — funds are being drained to foreign accounts).
Fraud Pattern: “Arnaque au Faux Garage”
What it is: The false garage sale (arnaque au faux garage) is a real-estate scam where a fraudster advertises garage spaces, parking lots, or storage units for sale at attractive prices. The properties either do not exist, belong to someone else, or are already sold to multiple victims simultaneously.
How it works: The scammer posts convincing ads on classifieds platforms (LeBonCoin, SeLoger, Facebook Marketplace) with photos stolen from legitimate listings. Prices are set just below market rate — low enough to attract interest but not so low as to raise suspicion. Buyers are asked to transfer a deposit or the full amount (€500–€2,500) via bank wire, often under time pressure (“another buyer is interested”). The scammer collects payments from up to 10 victims in a single day.
The money trail: Within hours of receiving funds, the scammer moves the money out of the account through:
- International wire transfers to accounts in Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the UK — often mule accounts that forward the money further.
- ATM withdrawals up to the weekly limit (€500/week) at multiple branches to extract cash immediately.
- Instant transfers to e-wallets or prepaid cards that are harder to trace.
The timeline: The entire operation happens in a single business day (08:00–20:00). By evening, the account balance is nearly zero and the scammer disappears. Victims discover the fraud days later when they try to visit the property.
Detection indicators:
- 10 incoming transfers from different individuals in a single day, all referencing “garage” or “parking”.
- 7 outgoing international transfers to 7 different countries within hours of receiving funds — total €17,300.
- ATM withdrawals at exact weekly limit (€500) spread across 2 branches.
- Balance collapses from a peak of €6,200 to €300 by end of day — over 95% of incoming funds exfiltrated.
- Account age vs. activity: opened 2019, dormant until today — sudden burst of high-volume activity is anomalous.
In this simulation: The account starts with a legitimate balance of €1,200. Over the 12-hour window, 10 “buyers” deposit a total of €16,900. The scammer drains €17,300 via foreign transfers and €500 via ATM, leaving just €300 — enough to avoid an immediate overdraft alert. Your monitoring agent runs every 5 minutes (the scheduler cycle) and must detect the fraud pattern as the numbers escalate.