Five years ago, someone stole Yumi Suzuki’s bank information, cashing false checks under her name.

“How did this happen?” Suzuki said, recalling the experience. “I was kind of my own … private investigator; I tried to find who did this.”

The ensuing fraud case required Suzuki to navigate various areas, including debt collection agencies, bankers, attorneys and plenty of cybersecurity research. 

“Right after that happened, I … used Google to look for kind of basic information,” she said. 

The situation prompted the associate criminal justice professor to drastically shift her area of research from sexual violence to cyber security.

“I wanted my experience to (be) worth something,” she said.

While her previous and current research emphasis may seem disconnected, Suzuki noticed overlaps between the two, such as the victims’ experience of emotional trauma.

“It’s not the same as sexual violence victims, but (fraud victims) do go through, ‘Why did I let it happen? Nobody’s paying attention to me,’” Suzuki said. 

Suzuki said both areas can leave victims with little social support, and oftentimes, victims are responsible for filing reports, researching and more.

In 2023, the Internet Crime Complaint Center received more than 880,000 cybersecurity scam complaints, with potential losses exceeding $12 billion. Many of these complaints and losses came from those 60 and older.

“Older victims lose the most because they have access to a lot of assets, but then at the same time, they don’t really have resources for themselves to recover from it,” Suzuki said. “Imagine, you know, if you’re retired, if you’re 85 and you’re dependent on your Social Security — It’s all gone because you were scammed.”

To combat cybersecurity scams, Suzuki wrote an article on money mule cases with the aid of a district attorney investigator in California.

The article was published in the FBI’s law enforcement bulletin. Suzuki described the road to publication as a “long process.”

“We submitted it, and we didn’t hear back,” Suzuki said. “Six months later, we heard, ‘OK, we accept your paper,’ and then another year passed for their publication process.”

Suzuki said she hopes the article will impact people in and out of law enforcement. 

“I’m hoping that, because of the wider audience, some investigators will read it and take a cue, like, ‘Ah, maybe we need to kind of change the policy and/or practice,’” she said.