Men allegedly impersonated voices and images of executives to convince employees to send large payments

Three foreign nationals were arrested and charged with using AI to allegedly impersonate corporate CEOs and attorneys to steal over $100m, according to an indictment that was newly unsealed by the US Department of Justice.

According to a press release from the United States attorney’s office for the southern district of New York, three men – Jacob Soall, Sharon Hazan, and Guy Sheetrit – were arrested for using AI to alter and impersonate the voices and images of executives and attorneys at various companies in order to convince employees to send over large payments. Soall and Hazan were arrested in Spain over the summer, while Sheetrit was arrested in the United Kingdom in September. The alleged fraud took place between 2024 and 2026.

Twin brothers, 22, from Ghana and a 53-year-old American woman targeted older adults in 25 US states, officials say

Three people have pleaded guilty in a $9m romance fraud scam that targeted elderly Americans.

On Monday, the US attorney’s office in the northern district of Ohio announced that twin brothers from Ghana and an American woman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

A Florida police department claims that scammers used AI to clone a sheriff’s voice, with scammers increasingly using voice clones that trick people into thinking they’ve missed jury duty or have a warrant out for their arrest are increasing.

According to Florida news outlet News6, scammers cloned Osceola County Sheriff Steve Moser’s voice and left a voicemail with a resident.    

“They cloned his voice and was using Steve’s picture as well to say it was him making the phone call, and it was not,” Sheriff Chris Blackmon told News6.

Impersonating a police officer is a third-degree felony in Florida. The Osceola County sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This particular scam cloning cops is spreading across several states, with reports of jury duty and arrest warrant scams targeting people in Georgia and Pennsylvania in the last week. These other reports don’t mention AI voice cloning explicitly, but note that the scammers sometimes have similar voices and tones as local police officers.  

Voice cloning scams have been around for years, with scammers using commercially available AI voice impersonation tools to target the elderly, families, and businesses. Last year, 404 Media investigated real-time deepfake scams that incorporated voice and video to defraud people. In 2024, we reported on the ways scammers cloned celebrity voices and use AI videos in YouTube ads to scam people.

Scammers often impersonate company executives or leadership to trick employees into sending money, and voice cloning appears to be an increasing part of that. In February, scammers cloned a managing partner of a law firm with AI. Ultimately, a private bank ended up transferring $108 million.