In recent years, identity thieves have focused on a particularly lucrative target: athletes about to turn professional.
A report from fraud detection company SentiLink found that NBA and NFL draft picks from a recent five-year period were much more likely than the average American to be victims of attempted financial fraud, such as fake loans and credit cards taken out in their names.
The numbers have increased dramatically from 2020 to 2025. Of the NBA draft picks from that period, 20% saw suspicious credit activity, such as credit card applications and attempted auto and consumer loan applications. For NFL picks in the period, the figure was 15.2%. The national average is usually between 2 and 3%, according to the report.
The data only flags suspicious attempts to obtain loans and does not track confirmed cases of identity theft.
“The majority of prospects are young adults, typically between the ages of 18 and 23. This demographic often has limited credit histories, fewer active financial accounts, and inconsistent digital footprints,” the report found.
“These characteristics make them ideal targets because fraudulent applications are less likely to trigger alerts associated with established credit behavior and there is often less public information available to contradict a fraudulent application,” he said.
The rise in identity fraud attempts surrounding young athletes coincides with a national trend. While there are no complete figures on how many Americans become victims each year, complaints to the Federal Trade Commission have increased almost every year since it began tracking them in 2001, culminating in a record 6.5 million last year.
James Lee, president of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit that helps Americans deal with identity theft, said young athletes make sense as targets.
“Professional athletes who are in the early stages of their careers are easy targets because they are highly visible, suddenly wealthy, but may not have the same level of personal protection and life skills to prevent professional criminals from taking advantage of them,” said Lee, who was not involved in the study.
Trying to open a credit card or apply for a bank loan in someone else’s name often requires little more than basic information about that person, such as their name, current address, date of birth, and family. It also typically requires a social security number, but they are hacked and marketed so frequently by cybercriminals that they are relatively easy to acquire.
Athletes competing to become professionals are subject to intense scrutiny and generally have little expectation of privacy. Their names, ages, and basic biographical and family information appear widely on sports websites and are often announced publicly on social media. And the fact that they are likely to move frequently between home, college, training camps, and the city where they were recruited means they are less likely to receive credit alerts in the mail.
The attempts also echo a series of home burglaries that have hit both leagues in recent years, especially targeting them while playing high-profile away games. Victims include NFL stars such as Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Shedeur Sanders and NBA stars such as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Doncic. The FBI is helping investigate the thefts for possible links to international criminal networks, NBC News reported last week. The agency did not respond when asked if it was also tracking identity thieves who target athletes.
SentiLink works with banks and other financial services to detect suspicious transactions and has a huge database of credit activity. The company’s researchers analyzed the 1,292 NFL players drafted between 2020 and 2024, as well as the 288 NBA players drafted in that same period, and compared them to national averages.
David Maimon, head of fraud analysis at SentiLink and lead researcher on the study, told NBC News that the data does not indicate a widespread organized criminal conspiracy and appears rather to be a phenomenon of more amateur criminals trying to take advantage of recently famous young people. He declined to share the names of players who have been especially targeted, citing confidentiality agreements.
Most identity theft attempts are not made public. But they can be amateur and shameless, while others can use modern technology and manipulation techniques.
Some loan applications ask a person to record a live video and move their head to prove their identity. But that can be easily fooled, Maimon said. Photographs of athletes are easy to find online and there are many artificial intelligence tools that can convincingly fake their head movements, he noted.
Jason Rivarde, public affairs commander for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana, said his office had arrested two people earlier this year for allegedly trying to obtain loans by posing as Cam Ward, the Tennessee Titans quarterback and first overall pick in the 2025 draft, as well as his father.
The couple was caught when an employee at a Jefferson County financial institution that had served them before recognized them trying to get a loan in a third name, Rivarde said.
The Wards and Titans did not respond to requests for comment.
The NBA and NFL players unions provide rookies with basic financial training and recommend vetted financial advisors, union spokespeople told NBC News.
But it’s particularly difficult for newly famous people to fully protect themselves from tenacious identity thieves, especially if they haven’t yet hired counselors to manage their finances and keep a close eye on their credit reports. Experts like Maimon say one of the best defenses is for everyone to keep their credit frozen, but that’s a tall order for an athlete who signs a big contract and is inclined to purchase items that require a credit check, such as vehicles and property.
