For months I’ve been speaking to an AI fraud kingpin.
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I → speak → kingpin
You might remember in 2024 we revealed the existence of OnlyFake, an underground site that let anyone generate realistic photos of fake IDs using ‘neural networks’.
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anyone → remember → networks
The creator of that site went by the handle John Wick.
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creator → go → handle
A while later, the creator was arrested.
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creator → arrest → ?
Yuriy Nazarenko, the creator of OnlyFake, told me his side of it.
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Nazarenko → tell → it
How when I published my initial article he panicked, and destroyed his laptop and emails and got a new phone, paranoid that authorities were about to bust down his door.
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authorities → publish → door
How the pressure of a growing fraud empire pushed him to drugs.
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pressure → grow → drugs
And how North Korean fake IT workers used his site.
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workers → use → site
A few years ago, Yuriy Nazarenko sat at a desk in his grandfather’s apartment in Ukraine and, on a diet of cigarettes, Lay’s chips, and beer, painstakingly made digital copies of fake identity documents.
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Nazarenko → sit → documents
One of his four computer screens had the messaging app Telegram open.
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app → have → screens
Another displayed a scan of a passport in Photoshop filling the entire monitor.
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Another → display → monitor
Pixel by pixel, with rap music blaring, Nazarenko edited each part of the passport.
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Nazarenko → blare → passport
That included the MRZ codes, the block of text printed at the bottom of identity documents; the photographs to superimpose someone else’s face into the document; and the overall dimensions and quirks of each different type of passport.
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That → include → passport
Nazarenko would sometimes sit for more than 12 hours at his computer, obsessively tinkering away, with a single, high-quality fake identity document taking up to a week of work.
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Nazarenko → sit → work
When someone thinks of fake IDs, maybe they imagine a spotty underage teen buying a physical counterfeit drivers’ license so they can score some beer.
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they → think → beer
A convincing scan of an ID or utility bill, loaded with a bogus name or someone else’s identity, can unlock the ability to make bank accounts, bypass checks on cryptocurrency exchanges to buy or sell more Bitcoin, or rent a safehouse, all while keeping the criminal’s real identity hidden.
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scan → load → identity
The digitally altered IDs need to fool both human reviewers and automated systems that scan them for inconsistencies.
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that → alter → inconsistencies
Making fake IDs requires exquisite attention to detail.
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Making → make → detail
All of that manual labor doesn’t really scale, Nazarenko thought to himself as he meticulously edited passport after passport.
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he → think → passport
He went on to make templates of fake identity documents that sped up the process, but it was still slow.
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it → go → process
After many of these quiet nights, he had an idea.
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he → have → idea
He built a website to automate the process that autopopulated a fake ID with the personal data a customer wanted, rather than having him do it by hand.
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him → build → hand
Then, when generative AI became mainstream a short while later, he incorporated that too.
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he → become → that
“That gradually became OnlyFake,” Nazarenko told me.
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Nazarenko → become → me
OnlyFake, the underground website Nazarenko made, landed like a bomb in the fraud world.
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Nazarenko → make → world
It allowed anyone to generate not only convincing scans of drivers’ licenses or passports, but also realistic looking photos of those fake identity documents laying on a sofa, carpet, or desk, as if someone had taken the ID out of their wallet and snapped a picture of it on their phone.
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someone → allow → phone
The results were photos of identity documents that didn’t really exist, of people who may not be real, but yet could trick the sorts of people and companies that verify documents.
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that → exist → documents
With OnlyFake, you didn’t have to be a master forger like Nazarenko to make fake documents.
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you → have → documents
Now, anyone could churn out fake IDs at scale, sometimes even hundreds or thousands at a time.
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anyone → churn → time
OnlyFake threatened the entire idea of know-your-customer, or KYC, where financial institutions take steps to know who exactly are using its services.
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who → threaten → services
When anyone can make a photo of a fake ID for just a few dollars in Bitcoin, is anyone really who they say they are?
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they → make → Bitcoin
Nazarenko didn’t know it then, hunched over his desk, but OnlyFake would soon become so influential that it would spawn copy cats, and the FBI would eventually arrest Nazarenko and shut down some of its competitors.
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FBI → know → competitors
The Department of Justice said in an announcement about Nazarenko’s guilty plea that OnlyFake made more than a million dollars selling fake IDs for just $15 a pop.
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OnlyFake → say → 15
Now for the first time, Nazarenko, 28, free after a year in prison and living in Asia, is telling his story: how North Korean fake IT workers used his creation, how he ended up in ICE detention for months after serving his sentence in the U.S., and how OnlyFake unleashed a new age of AI-powered fraud.
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OnlyFake → live → fraud
Nazarenko said he wanted to talk to me because I was the first journalist to reveal that OnlyFake existed.
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OnlyFake → say → me
This article is based on interviews with Nazarenko and his lawyer; court records; and my own reporting in the online world of fraud that OnlyFake inhabited.
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OnlyFake → base → that
“OnlyFake was the first time I saw how quickly a small internet project could turn into something global.
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project → see → something
Unfortunately, it also taught me, in a very painful way, what can happen when the scale of something grows faster than your understanding of its consequences,” Nazarenko told me.
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Nazarenko → teach → me
Growing up, Nazarenko’s parents questioned whether Nazarenko would ever find a job.
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Nazarenko → grow → job
His father worked for the Security Service of Ukraine.
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father → work → Ukraine
…and 5 more, not listed.
The Aporia
