Apate Deploys 350,000 AI Bots to Tie Up Scammers and Gather 250,000 Fraud Clues
Updated
Updated · WIRED · Oct 10
Apate Deploys 350,000 AI Bots to Tie Up Scammers and Gather 250,000 Fraud Clues
1 articles · Updated · WIRED · Oct 10
Summary
Apate says its network of about 350,000 AI bots now answers scam calls, texts and online chats, aiming to keep fraudsters occupied while harvesting real-time intelligence.
More than 250,000 data points — including scam URLs, mule accounts and bank details — have been collected as the bots pose as varied, skeptical but persuadable targets.
Calls often last more than two hours, according to CEO Dali Kaafar, and a demo tested by Kernel Panic showed the system responding naturally enough to frustrate would-be scammers.
Banks use the platform with telecom support, reflecting a broader push to automate anti-scam disruption as governments struggle to police cross-border cybercrime at scale.
The approach mirrors LLM-powered honeypots in cybersecurity, where researchers say more realistic AI decoys can keep attackers engaged longer and expose their methods.