A recently divorced Bitcoin investor lost his entire retirement fund (one full Bitcoin) to an AI-powered romance scam that used deepfake technology for synthetic portraits and real-time video calls to create a convincing fake romantic relationship.
A recently divorced Bitcoin investor who had reached the milestone of owning one full Bitcoin was targeted by a sophisticated romance scam that employed AI technology. The scammer contacted the victim through an unsolicited message, claiming to be an attractive female trader who offered to help double his Bitcoin holdings. The scammer used AI to generate entirely synthetic portraits that appeared convincingly realistic, avoiding the need for stolen photos. During video calls, the scammer employed live deepfake video generation that overlaid a fabricated face onto the scammer's actual body in real time, maintaining lip-sync accuracy across different lighting conditions. The scammer professed romantic feelings, discussed future plans, and convinced the victim to purchase a plane ticket to meet in person. The victim ultimately transferred his entire Bitcoin retirement fund to the scammer. According to Chainalysis, pig butchering scams cost victims $5.5 billion across roughly 200,000 individual cases in 2024, averaging $27,500 per victim. Romance scam losses exceeded $1.34 billion in 2024 and 2025, with the Federal Trade Commission reporting that 40% of online daters have been targeted by romance scams.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
Using AI systems to gain a personal advantage over others such as through cheating, fraud, scams, blackmail or targeted manipulation of beliefs or behavior. Examples include AI-facilitated plagiarism for research or education, impersonating a trusted or fake individual for illegitimate financial benefit, or creating humiliating or sexual imagery.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed