Hong Kong employee tricked into paying out $25 million to fraudsters posing as deepfake boss

In a massive case of misuse of artificial intelligence and financial fraud, an employee of a Hong Kong-based multinational company was duped into paying out $25 million to fraudsters using deepfake technology. The fraudsters posed as the company’s chief financial officer amongst others in a video conference call, CNN reported, citing Hong Kong police.

The victim was tricked into attending a video call with whom he assumed were his colleagues; all of them were, in fact, deepfake recreations, according to the report quoting Hong Kong authorities on Friday.

“In the multi-person video conference, it turns out that everyone (the worker saw on the call) was fake,” a senior Hong Kong police officer told the local media on Monday.

The worker grew suspicious after he received a message purportedly from the company’s UK-based chief financial officer. The message mentioned an urgent requirement for a secret transaction that fuelled the worker’s doubts about it being a phishing mail.

However, those apprehensions were allayed after the multiple-person video call wherein those in attendance looked and sounded similar to his colleagues whom he recognised, the police said.

The Hong Kong police added that the worker agreed to remit the hefty amount believing that everyone else present on the call was real. The employee discovered that he had been duped after he checked with the corporation’s head office.

The case in the latest in a string of episodes in which fraudsters use deepfake technology to cheat people with content available in the public domain. The police said they had made six arrests in connection with such deepfake-related scams.