The scammer simulates the meeting and steals US$25 million from the company

Hong Kong Police revealed in a press conference last Friday (02) that an employee in the financial sector of a multinational company was killed in a new fraud using deep fake technology. The man was tricked into participating in a meeting with employees he actually knew and transferred $25 million, but these were false inventions.

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Deep scam

• The employee received a letter from the company's supposed CFO requesting a confidential transfer.
• He suspected it was a phishing email, but felt more confident after joining a meeting with other employees he already knew.
• Police Chief Inspector Baron Chan Chun Cheng told the city's public broadcaster RTHK that the official believed the meeting was real because the people looked and spoke like their real counterparts.
• So he agreed to transfer 200 million Hong Kong dollars, which is about 25.6 million US dollars.
• according to CNNThe fraud was discovered only when the employee traveled to the company's headquarters in the United Kingdom.

Other cases

This case is not isolated: several other episodes of fraudsters using deepfake technology to modify audio and videos and carry out scams have emerged since the spread of artificial intelligence.

Hong Kong police said at the press conference that they have already arrested six people in connection with this type of fraud, and eight lost identity records were used to submit 90 loan applications and 54 new bank account registrations between July and September 2023.

The episode reveals not only how easy it is for scammers to scam victims with realistic images, but also how widespread concern over this type of content is. However, social media platforms are still having a hard time stopping it.

A recent example is the case of Taylor Swift: doctored pornographic images spread widely on social media, and although Company X (formerly Twitter) deleted the posts, it did so only after receiving complaints. However, the images continued to spread.