Fraudsters used deepfake voice technology to clone a company director's voice and convince a bank manager to transfer $35 million by impersonating the director in phone calls and coordinating with fake emails from a supposed lawyer.
In early 2020, a branch manager of a Japanese company in Hong Kong received a phone call from what he believed was the director of his parent business, whose voice he recognized. The caller, using 'deep voice' technology to clone the director's speech, informed the manager that the company was making an acquisition requiring $35 million in transfers. The fraudsters coordinated this with emails from a fake lawyer named Martin Zelner to make the scheme appear legitimate. The manager, believing everything was authentic, authorized the transfers. According to UAE court documents, the elaborate scheme involved at least 17 individuals and sent stolen funds to bank accounts across the globe, with $400,000 traced to US-based accounts at Centennial Bank. This represents only the second known case of voice cloning technology being used for financial fraud, following a similar but less successful attempt in the UK in 2019 where fraudsters tried to steal $240,000 from an energy company. The incident demonstrates the growing sophistication of AI-powered fraud techniques and the potential for voice synthesis technology to be exploited by criminal actors.
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