FIRST ON FOX: The origins of a fraud-fighting technology now used by one of the world’s largest insurers trace back to a deadly insider attack during the Iraq War.Clearspeed founder Alex Martin was serving in the Marine Corps. when his close friend, Capt. Warren Frank, was killed by an Iraqi soldier who turned his weapon on American forces during a joint patrol. The Iraqi had passed coalition vetting procedures."Warren met his future wife at my house," Martin recalled to FOX Business. "Learning he’d been killed by an Al-Qaeda infiltrator we’d brought into his formation – it shook me. I couldn’t accept that insider attack as inevitable."So-called "green-on-blue" attacks, in which supposedly vetted local forces turned on coalition troops, became one of the Global War on Terror’s most vexing threats. Between 2008 and 2017, such incidents killed more than 150 coalition service members in Afghanistan alone."I became obsessed with our vetting process and realized our traditional playbook simply couldn’t keep pace with the operational tempo, language barriers and risks of counterinsurgency warfare," Martin said.His solution was to flip the model: quickly establish trust for the majority who posed no threat, while focusing expert scrutiny on the small fraction requiring deeper review.After leaving active duty, Martin partnered with Stanford professor Charles Holloway to develop a voice-based vetting tool designed to quickly assess risk across languages and high-stakes environments.The company’s first major customer was U.S. Special Operations Command. In 2018, Clearspeed screened 715 Afghan commando recruits in less than 20 hours – a process that would normally take months. Several individuals flagged as high-risk later deserted.The success attracted investment from retired Gen. David Petraeus, the former CIA director and commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company has since raised $110 million and counts the Department of Defense and U.S. intelligence agencies among its customers.TRUMP URGES IMMEDIATE RATE CUTS AMID IRAN CONFLICTNow, the technology is being used beyond the battlefield.Insurance giant Allianz recently disclosed it identified more than £92.6 million (about $115 million) in fraudulent claims during the first half of 2025, with executives crediting voice-screening technology from San Diego-based Clearspeed as central to its fraud detection strategy.Clearspeed is a voice-based vetting platform originally developed for U.S. military use. During an automated phone call, individuals answer a short series of yes-or-no questions while the system analyzes vocal characteristics in real time.It flags potential risk indicators for human review, allowing low-risk respondents… [TheTopNews] Read More.
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