Deepfake Scam Alert!Scammer defrauds company of $25 million in ‘fake’ video meeting

We’ve seen how deepfakes proliferate across the internet, imitating some of the most popular people for nefarious purposes, sometimes to deceive unsuspecting people. But what if we told you that scammers in Hong Kong were able to use deepfake technology to fake video meetings and steal up to $25.6 million in the process?

According to the South China Morning Post, the same situation happened to a Hong Kong-based company, where scammers used the fast-developing deepfake technology to deceive the company’s local employees in a fake and manipulated video conference call. branches. Scammers reportedly digitally faked the appearance of the company’s chief financial officer in order to issue transfer instructions.

With the exception of the victim, everyone on the video call was a dummy of a real person, the publication reported.

“Scammers applied deepfake technology to transform publicly available videos and other footage into convincing versions of meeting participants,” the report states.

Hong Kong police said this was the first fraud case in Hong Kong. Acting Senior Superintendent Baron Chan Shun-ching said: “This time, in the multi-person video conference, everyone you see is fake.”

“They used deepfake technology to imitate the target’s voice reading a script,” the official added. There were 15 transfers totaling HK$25.6 million to multiple bank accounts in Hong Kong.

It is worth noting that before this, many celebrity deepfakes swept the Internet. The first incident occurred last year when Indian actress Rashmika Mandanna had her face forced onto an online influencer’s video. Recently, a fake pornographic clip of singer Taylor Swift has also gone viral on the internet.