Man was scammed more than 600,000 USD for calling deepfake

**Despite having video call with friend as proof, this person still got scammed money because deepfake fake too fake.** Last month, Guo, owner of a technology company in Fuzhou city, China Quoc, was scammed 4.3 million yuan ($610,000) for trusting in AI technology. The group of scammers used artificial intelligence to mimic his friend’s face and voice, then tried to convince him to transfer money to his account. ## Asking for money by deepfake Telling to *Sixth Tone*, the victim reported receiving a WeChat video call from a friend. This person asked Guo to send money using the company’s account and promised to return the money immediately. The tech company boss, because of his gullibility, immediately sent this friend money and received a screenshot of the refund. However, this photo is fake. This scammer used advanced deepfake technology, capable of swapping faces with AI and impersonating the victim’s close friend. Indeed, Guo believed immediately when his friend said that he needed money to play the auction. “I was caught off guard after confirming my friend’s face and voice during the video call,” Guo said. After that, he contacted his friend again and this person said that he did not ask to borrow money from him. Even the friend showed an indifferent attitude towards the incident. On May 22, local police said nearly 3.3 million yuan had been recovered. The remaining amount is still being traced. The authorities also advise users to be careful when publishing biometric information, and limit the sharing of videos and personal images widely on the Internet. Not long after that, a number of hashtags related to AI scams began to spread and reached the top of Weibo trends. Users also expressed concern when money scams like Guo are increasing in number and complexity and sophistication. Li, an employee in Fuzhou, was also scammed of $48,000. The scammers used deepfake software to pretend to be Li’s boss and asked him to send money. ## AI is misused According to *Sixth Tone*, the number of scams taking place is increasing, causing users to worry. They worry that AI will be misused for bad behavior, especially at a time when artificial intelligence has been a popular keyword since ChatGPT launched in November 2022. Guo’s case is not the first time AI has been used to impersonate someone and scam money. A woman named Jennifer DeStefano was once the victim of a virtual kidnapping scam via phone with the help of a deepfake. With this AI technology, kidnappers scare the victim’s family with a modified sound to resemble the victim’s voice and demand ransom. On January 20, she received a call from an unknown number, with her daughter’s voice calling for help along with a threat from an unknown man. “Listen. Your daughter is in my arms. If you call the police or anyone, I’ll inject her with drugs. I’ll take her to Mexico and you’ll never see your daughter again,” the person said over the phone.The kidnappers quickly demanded a ransom of $1 million, and DeStefano decided to call the police. After a series of attempts to reach Brianna, the “kidnapping” case was exposed ## Using AI to create banned content On the other hand, in China, as e-commerce develops, online shopping becomes more and more popular. As a popular form, many livestreamers use face-changing software to impersonate celebrities to sell products, which has sparked a wave of strong criticism.In March, a girl shared shared a photo of a fish while riding a train on social media, which was then downloaded by a netizen and used an AI tool to fake a new moving photo, allowing the user to “escape” the person. women in the photo in just one click.This photo was quickly shared widely and attracted public attention.On March 28, another related case continued to occur. This is Jiangsu province’s first case of deepfake invasion of human privacy. During the trial, the Court of Special Economic Zone of Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province pointed out that the suspect Zheng spread a deepfake program, specializing in producing erotic photos and videos from August 2021 to February 2022. Then, he will use these products to sell for money on group chats and earn more than 20,000 yuan. He also traded in the service of unlocking QQ accounts, which used to cheat, bet, violate the law… Finally, the court sentenced the suspect to 8 months in prison, fined 40,000 yuan and handed over all criminal tools, infringing upon the personal information of others.