AI incident ·
Hong Kong Man Reportedly Lost More Than HK$10 Million in WhatsApp Scam Using Purported AI-Generated Voice Impersonation of His Father
On this page 7 sections
In brief
An AI system built by Voice cloning technology developers, Synthetic media generation technology developers and 2 others and deployed by Voice cloning impersonation scammers, Synthetic media creators and 4 others allegedly harmed WhatsApp users, Victims of voice cloning impersonation scams and 2 others.
- Risk domain
- Not classified
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 3 reports
What happened
A Hong Kong man reportedly lost more than HK$10 million after scammers hijacked his father's WhatsApp account and sent voice messages closely resembling his father's voice and speech. The victim allegedly made repeated transfers until his savings were depleted.
Laws on record for this risk area
No instrument on record yet covers this risk area where it happened. See the open queue.
Matched from the record's risk category and country to the instruments in effect recorded here: a law listed covers the area, which is not a finding that it applies to this incident. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).
News reports (3)
Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.
Who was involved
- Alleged deployer
- Voice cloning impersonation scammers Synthetic media creators Scammers in Hong Kong Scammers Deepfake creators Cybercriminals
- Alleged developer
- Voice cloning technology developers Synthetic media generation technology developers Synthetic audio generation technology developers Deepfake technology developers
- Alleged harmed party
- WhatsApp users Victims of voice cloning impersonation scams Victims of impersonation scams Financial scam victims
AI systems implicated
WhatsAppVoice cloning technologySynthetic media generation technologySynthetic audio generation technologyMessaging appsDeepfake technology
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
- Risk domain
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- Risk subdomain
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- Causal entity
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- Intent
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- Timing
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- Harm level
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- Sectors
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- Countries
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Related incidents
Linked by editors or by text similarity in the source dataset.
Source record: incident #1648 on the AI Incident Database · all 3 reports