She appeared to be a beautiful woman and, in the minds of many men across Asia, the video calls they chatted on confirmed that this new romance was real.
But Hong Kong police say the men were victims of a love scam that used artificial intelligence deepfake to lure his victims and make them pay more than US$46 million.
At a press conference on Monday (14), authorities announced the arrest of more than 24 people who were part of an alleged fraudulent scheme, which they said targeted men from Taiwan to Singapore and as far away as India.
Police said the 21 men and six women were detained on charges including conspiracy to commit fraud following a raid on the gang’s alleged operational center in an industrial unit of about 1200 m² in the city’s Hung Hom district.
The suspects, aged between 21 and 34, were mostly well-educated, many of them digital media and technology graduates, allegedly recruited by the gang after attending local universities, police said. The suspects allegedly worked with IT experts abroad to create a fake cryptocurrency platform where victims were coerced into making investments, police added.
THE deepfake were done through realistic fake video, audio, and other content created with the help of AI. The technology has been increasingly used by various malicious people, from those who want to spread misinformation to online scammers.
The scams became known as “Pig-butchering” (pig butchering) – since the objective was to “fatten” the victims before taking everything they have.
It was a multibillion-dollar illicit industry in which scammers assumed false online identities and spent months grooming their targets to get them to invest in fake crypto websites. THE deepfake they were just another weapon in these scammers’ arsenal to try to convince unsuspecting users to invest money.
The crime is generally carried out by Chinese gangs outside Southeast Asia, but it is unclear how widespread it is in Hong Kong, a wealthy city where police have long campaigned to raise awareness of phone scams after several high-profile cases in which victims – often elderly people – reported incredibly high losses.
But the technology deepfakeincreasingly realistic, increased the risks and put authorities on high alert.
Earlier this year, a British multinational design and engineering company in Hong Kong lost $25 million to fraudsters after an employee was duped by scammers using technology deepfake to impersonate its chief financial officer and other employees.
According to the Hong Kong police, the scheme deepfake from the gang usually started with a text message, in which the sender – disguised as an attractive woman – said that he had mistakenly added the wrong number.
The alleged scammers would then start online romances with their victims, fostering a sense of intimacy and even starting to plan a future together.
The group was highly organized, divided into departments in charge of different stages of the coup, according to police. They even used a training manual to teach members how to carry out the scam, taking advantage of the victim’s “sincerity and emotion,” said police authorities, who published parts of the manual on Facebook.
Among the steps were: learning about the victim’s worldview to create a “tailored” persona; inventing difficulties, such as failed relationships or businesses, to “deepen the other person’s trust”; and, finally, present a “beautiful vision”, including travel plans, to convince the victim to invest.
The scam ran for about a year before police received information about it around August, police say. In the operation, police recovered more than 100 cell phones, the equivalent of almost US$26,000 in cash and several luxury watches.
This content was originally published in Love scam uses deepfake and has already caused US$46 million in damage in Asia on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
