Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged three foreign nationals with running a scheme that allegedly used artificial intelligence to impersonate corporate executives and lawyers and stole more than $129 million, NBC News reported on Nov. 6, citing an indictment and a U.S. attorney’s office press release. A mutual fund company in Massachusetts is among the alleged victims.
Related: Binance Says a Fake Job Interview Opened the Door to a $6.34 Billion Theft.
Who is charged
The indictment was filed in the Southern District of New York, NBC News reported. Jacob Soall was arrested in Spain in June, Sharon Hazan was arrested in Spain in August and Guy Sheetrit was arrested in the United Kingdom in September, according to the report. The charges are allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent.
How the scheme allegedly worked
Prosecutors allege the group told employees, usually in accounting departments, that they needed help with a confidential transaction and used AI to mimic the company CEO’s voice, NBC News reported. The fake CEO then pointed employees to “attorneys” at large international law firms who were also part of the scheme, prosecutors said.
An accomplice would then tell the employee to wire money to bank accounts around the world, and the group converted the money into cryptocurrency to hide it, according to prosecutors. Soall allegedly posed as U.K. lawyers using a script titled “Lawyer Call,” the release said.
The alleged victims
The alleged victims include an investment bank in New York, hospital systems in Missouri and California, a bank in Rhode Island, a U.K. financial technology company, a Massachusetts mutual fund company and a Florida pet food company, NBC News reported. The report did not name the companies.
Why it matters
The case shows how voice-cloning tools can make classic wire fraud more convincing. More AI and security coverage is on the AI news page and in Technology.
Sources
Read next in Artificial Intelligence
Artificial IntelligenceOpenAI Says Its Upcoming Cyber Model Found 948 Privilege-Escalation Bugs in Linux
Artificial IntelligenceCensys Finds 800-Plus Exposed Copies of Artex, the AI Hacking Tool Tied to Recent Attacks
Artificial IntelligenceAWS Launches Kiro Bots to Run Fleets of AI Coding Agents for Developers
Most read this week
- Abdul El-Sayed and the Muslim Brotherhood Claims: What’s Confirmed and What Isn’t
- Stock Futures Erase a 2.4% Overnight Drop as Markets Digest Democrats’ Sweep of Congress
- Spain Transport Minister Óscar Puente Quits 26 Days Before Election Over Crash That Killed 69
- GM Korea’s Sales Jump 26.6% on Chevrolet Exports as Hyundai Slips 6.3% and Korean Factory Growth Cools
- Boston Plans to Close 3 Schools in 2028 as Enrollment Drops as Much as 58%
Latest
- CENTCOM Launches a Podcast With Adm. Cooper Eight Months Into the Iran War, Drawing Criticism
- Hegseth Clears National Guard in D.C. to Use Patrol Cars, Tactical Vehicles and Boats
- First 8 of 86 USS Arizona Unknowns Disinterred in Honolulu for DNA Identification
- SpaceX Launches Classified USSF-432 Mission for the Space Force From Vandenberg
- Marines Reactivate the “Silver Eagles” as an F-35C Squadron at Cherry Point