A 77-year-old woman was defrauded of £17,000 through an elaborate romance scam using AI-generated deepfake videos that convinced her she was in a relationship with a fake person claiming to work on an oil rig.
Nikki MacLeod, a 77-year-old retired lecturer from Edinburgh, was targeted in an online romance fraud that used AI-generated deepfake videos to deceive her. The scammers created a fake persona called 'Alla Morgan' who claimed to work on an oil rig in the North Sea. MacLeod initially met this person through a Facebook chat group and became suspicious when live video calls were refused. However, she received recorded video messages that appeared to show a real woman on an oil rig, which were actually created using AI deepfake technology. The scammers used these convincing videos to build trust and then requested money, starting with Steam gift cards worth hundreds of pounds supposedly needed for internet connection on the rig. The requests escalated to $2,500 for helicopter transport and eventually involved fake bank accounts and HR departments. MacLeod sent a total of £17,000 through gift cards, bank transfers, and PayPal payments before her bank alerted her that she was a victim of fraud when another payment failed. Her bank and PayPal recovered approximately £7,000, but £10,000 remains unrecovered. Police Scotland confirmed they are investigating the matter, and experts noted that the deepfake videos showed telltale signs like unnatural eye movements and jawline inconsistencies.
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