"some of the fraud machinery is malfunctioning."

Spot on, imo. It simply is impossible at this point for things to go their way. The game has irretrievably changed, and they literally are at a loss about what can be done...

Because nothing can be done. It really is dawning on me that we're seeing the machine trip and fall, like those giant leggy mechanical things from Star Wars when they got tripped up by whatever things went flying around their legs. Whatever other chaos is unfolding, I think we're currently arriving at the F.O. stage that we've been hankering for.