We already know that artificial intelligence can clone any voice. Cybercriminals take advantage of this to implement scams like the one an old man has sufferedwith the added anguish of believing that his son had killed a pregnant woman.
The events have occurred in the United States, according to narrates the middle ABC7. An older man named Anthony, who did not want to reveal his last name, received the call from his son, explaining that He had been in a car accident and hit a pregnant woman.. Then he hung up abruptly.
“It was his voice. It was absolutely his voice. There was no doubt,” Anthony explains. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. The fact that he believed so set the scam in motion.
This is how an AI scam works
Just a couple of minutes after he thought he was talking to his son, he received a call from his supposed lawyer, Michael Roberts, who told him this in an urgent tone: “You have to get $9,200 as soon as possible if you want to get your son out.” son of jail. Otherwise, he will be imprisoned for 45 days.
Anthony tried calling his son, but it always went to voicemailso he assumed it was because he was in jail.
The old man went to the bank to withdraw the money. He told them it was to put solar panels on the house, he didn’t want them to get suspicious. With the money in hand, it was her daughter who called the scam lawyer. He immediately sent them an Uber to give him the money..
The daughter verified that the Uber had a legal license number, but her big mistake was not getting in the car to see that lawyer in person. Or maybe he felt afraid. In these scams, Uber drivers usually don’t know anything. They are called to pick up an envelope, and that is what they do.
The scam got worse. A few hours later, a second lawyer, Mark Cohen, called them. He assured that The pregnant woman had died in the hospital, so the bail was raised to $25,000.. The victims, blocked, made a second delivery. Until the daughter searched for information about these cases on the Internet, and came to the conclusion that it was an AI scam.
According to the police, the cybercriminals obtained a few seconds of the real voice of Anthony’s son, perhaps from a video he uploaded to social networks, or by calling him on his cell phone without answering. Just by saying, “Who is this?” or “Who are you?”, is enough for an artificial intelligence to be able to clone the voice, and say any phrase with the same tone.
That’s how Anthony received an audio message from what he believed to be his son’s voice, stating that he had run over a woman, and when he believed it, the rest came easily.
The key to the matter is why the son didn’t answer his father’s callsin all those hours. The police have not confirmed it, but sometimes cybercriminals steal the mobile phone of the person who is scamming (the son), so that he cannot receive calls.
This type of scam based on anxiety over an accident, or a kidnappingthey have been running for years. But before, people who imitated voices were used, or they were limited to text messages. Now with AI, everything is more realistic and easier to do. This old man has been cruelly defrauded of 23,000 euros, making him believe that his son had killed a pregnant woman. The AI modified voice was key to making it work.
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Tags: Artificial intelligence
Dictionary: Scam
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