Hong Kong police busted an alleged scam center and arrested 27 people they accused of using artificial intelligence deepfakes to carry out a crypto romance investment scam that defrauded victims of more than $46 million.
The scammers used AI deepfakes to trick victims into thinking they were developing romantic relationships with real women while being lured into the scam, the Hong Kong Police Force told local media on Oct. 14.
Victims were defrauded out of a total of $46.3 million (360 million Hong Kong dollars), the police said.
Superintendents Yiu Wing-kan (left), Fang Chi-kin (middle) and Chief Inspector Chan Wing-kwan (Right) of Hong Kong’s Crime Prevention Office at a news conference. Source: Hong Kong Police
The alleged cross-border scheme was carried out from a 4,000-square-foot industrial building in the Hong Kong neighborhood of Hung Hom and targeted mostly men from mainland China, Taiwan, India and Singapore.
The group recruited local university graduates who majored in digital media and paid overseas IT professionals to build a fake crypto investment platform, the police said.
The operation’s leaders also allegedly developed training manuals for those carrying out the AI deepfake scams.
Police launched an operation to take down the scheme on Oct. 9, seizing several computers, luxury watches and more than 100 mobile phones belonging to members of the alleged scam ring.
Some of the mobile phones seized in the police operation. Source: Radio Television Hong Kong
The 27 arrested range between 21 and 34 years of age and 21 are men.
Police have charged them with “conspiracy to defraud” and “possession of offensive weapons.”
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In February, deepfake scammers managed to trick an employee at a multinational finance firm in Hong Kong into sending out more than $25 million of company funds through a scheme that impersonated multiple company executives in an online video meeting.
It is believed the scammers stole and used previous footage of the company’s executives to create the deepfake impersonations, according to Hong Kong Police’s Baron Chan.
“We want to alert the public to these new deception tactics,” Chan said at the time.
Crypto scammers stole $4.6 billion from victims in 2023, with funds stolen from romance or “pig butchering” scams doubling year-on-year since 2020, Chainalysis data shows.
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