Colin Yates
Head of Fraud Prevention
Colin is an internationally recognised expert on telecoms fraud management who started his career in investigative policing. His storied career has resulted in a list of achievements too long to name; but know that he is so good at foiling fraudsters that an organised crime syndicate once tried (and failed) to buy him off.
Colin has racked up over 50 years’ experience – during which time he has worked with operators in 25 countries, run his own fraud and investigation consultancy, spoken at numerous conferences, and even been inducted into the RAG Hall of Fame in 2020.
His move from police to telecoms fraud began with a small telco in his home country of New Zealand. He quickly spotted a 25-million-dollar problem that no one else seemed to notice – it was an issue which people didn’t fully understand or appreciate the seriousness of – and came up with a 1-million-dollar solution. This set the trajectory for Colin’s career, and it became his mission to help safeguard the telecoms community against fraud.
For 56 years, I’ve been chasing bad guys.
Not only did he create the original database of high-risk International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF) numbers, which he personally grew from scratch to reach 3.5 million numbers in just three years. But he also shared this database for free with whoever wanted it, saving companies millions in potential fraud losses.
In fact, Colin strongly believes the telecoms community needs to ‘move together’. His avid networking and intelligence sharing was initially driven by geographic isolation, but he soon realised that relationships are an important strategy in building risk awareness and preventing multi-organisational fraud. To this day Colin can rely on contacts made decades ago.
But, after decades of travelling the globe, hopping from one incident to the next, Colin is now happily working with Symmetry from New Zealand where he can enjoy his home’s natural beauty and time with his family.
It’s easy to commit fraud against a telco. People think it’s a victimless crime, but it’s not.
Nevertheless, his product development streak continues. The fraud prevention tool, Symmetry Shield, was his brainchild and now includes typically 20-30 million IRSF specified numbers (mostly used as test numbers by fraudsters), and ‘attack range’ intelligence exceeding 1bn numbers. Surrounded by a team who shares his innovative eye, Colin feels the freedom to do things right, not rushed. Today, IRSF and the rising number of telephone scams are two themes that have his eye.
All in all, Colin doesn’t just love putting away bad guys. He excels at it. He has been headhunted and pulled back from the brink of retirement many times, because of his unique knack for investigating telecoms fraud – a process which a law enforcement colleague once described to him as “harder than investigating a whodunit murder”.
Deputy Chair and Chair of the GSMA and the GSMA Asia Pacific Fraud Forums
Chairman and Director of FIINA and Secretary/Director of the CFCA
Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) in 1996
Inducted into the Risk Assurance Group (RAG) Hall of Fame in 2020