World Cup guide warns banks of scams & trafficking

Feedzai and The Knoble have released a guide for banks and financial institutions on detecting scams and human trafficking linked to the 2026 World Cup. The resource focuses on risks associated with the tournament across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

The guide outlines patterns that banks and credit unions can use to identify suspicious activity associated with major events, including fake ticket sales, rental fraud, and financial flows linked to trafficking. It argues that large sporting events do not create new forms of crime but can intensify existing criminal networks as travel, temporary labour, resale activity and online engagement all increase at once.

The financial sector has a distinct view across payment channels, including peer-to-peer transfers, cards, wires and crypto transactions. That position can help institutions connect signals across accounts, devices and geographies that might otherwise appear unrelated.

The guide highlights indicators such as unusual spikes in peer-to-peer payments, first-time transfers, clusters of hotel bookings, late-night cash withdrawals, and accounts that rapidly receive and move funds with little personal spending. It also points to multiple accounts linked by shared contact details or devices as a possible sign of coordinated activity.

The publication places human trafficking and fraud within the same operational picture for financial crime teams. It notes that trafficking rarely appears as a single transaction and is more often visible through patterns of spending and fund movement over time.

Risk Spikes

The groups pointed to evidence from other high-profile events to show how risk can increase. Around this year's Super Bowl, anti-trafficking operations led to nearly 30 arrests and the identification of more than 70 victims, while financial institutions reported scam incidents rising by as much as 80% around major ticket releases.

The Knoble estimates that stronger engagement by the financial sector during the World Cup could lead to more than 2,000 escalations to law enforcement and more than 28,500 suspicious activity reports worldwide. Those figures suggest the scale of monitoring and reporting that could follow if banks apply shared indicators to a global event with heavy travel and spending volumes.

The guidance also warns that scams can be an entry point to wider exploitation. Criminal groups may use fraud to steal money directly, move funds quickly between accounts, or lure people into money-mule activity, in which they unwittingly transfer illicit proceeds.

That overlap is one reason the guide calls for a more joined-up response from banks, payment firms, law enforcement and specialist networks. It argues that fragmented visibility still makes it harder to identify links between incidents that cross borders and payment systems.

Ian Mitchell, founder of The Knoble, said the tournament would create conditions that bad actors have historically exploited: "Major events like the World Cup bring people together, but they also create urgency, excitement, and distraction, which scammers and criminal networks exploit."

"The goal of this guide is to raise awareness of what's happening behind the scenes and how financial institutions play an important role in detecting these crimes."

Bank Role

The report presents banks and credit unions as an important point of detection because they can track behaviour across multiple products and customer relationships. That includes payments for short-term lodging, card transactions, transfers between linked accounts and withdrawals in locations associated with event travel.

For consumers, the guidance lists warning signs such as requests for payment through peer-to-peer apps from unknown individuals, heavily discounted deals presented as urgent, first-time requests to send money or buy cryptocurrency, and messages impersonating travel providers, event organisers or public officials.

Feedzai said the financial consequences of scams and exploitation should not be treated separately from personal harm. Nuno Sebastião, chief executive officer and co-founder of Feedzai, linked transaction monitoring to broader efforts to prevent abuse.

"Financial safety is human safety," Sebastião said. "By analysing the patterns of how money moves and understanding signals of criminal activity and exploitation, the better the chances are that we can prevent real harm from being done."

"Trust is what keeps the financial system moving. Protecting people from scams and exploitation is fundamental to maintaining that trust."