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If in the past forging a voice was a complex task, not long ago we saw how easily it is possible to fake the voices of people – famous and not famous alike – and make them say whatever you want. But according to a new investigation, it seems that this trend has already become a new way to blackmail people.
The family members are “in jail” and need money
An investigation by the Washington Post reveals that in the United States and Canada, a new epidemic has recently begun – blackmailing people by using a voicemail – that is, produced by a computer program – of one of their relatives, claiming that that person or woman is in distress and they need assistance economic. In response, those close to them rush to spend money to help their “family members” – only to discover that they were actually talking to an AI-generated voice.
In one case, a 73-year-old woman from Canada says that she received a call from her grandson claiming that he had been arrested and was without his wallet and cell phone, and needed cash to be released on bail. The woman and her husband ran to the bank and withdrew thousands of dollars from one bank branch – until they reached the withdrawal limit from the account. When they arrived at another branch to withdraw more cash, the branch manager – according to the woman – took her to his office and told her that another person had gone through a similar case, and that in his case it was a call that included the use of Johnert’s voice, and that the person who called her was probably not her grandson at all.
In another case, of a man named Benjamin Parkin, his parents lost about 15 thousand dollars after they transferred it to pay for his legal expenses – allegedly. The parents say that they received a call from a lawyer who claimed that their son was in prison after killing an American diplomat in a car accident, and that they should pay him for his work. Parkin says that his voice was apparently “close enough to convince them that they were talking to me.” His parents, as in the previous case, rushed to the bank and took out money in cash – which they deposited to purchase Bitcoin and transfer it through a terminal to the “lawyer”.
Parkin discovered the case only after calling his parents one evening to ask how they were. He says that he is not clear on the basis of which voice samples created his fake voice, but it is possible that it came from his YouTube page where he talks about his hobby – riding snowmobiles.
According to data from the Federal Communications Authority (FTC) in the United States, in the last year thousands of calls were recorded by people pretending to be relatives and family members of people, and these managed to get a pretty crazy amount of 11 million dollars from their victims. However, the Authority’s data does not indicate what percentage of these calls – if any – included the use of voicemails. The big problem, according to FTC officials, is the lack of ability to find these scammers. In addition, they point out that the fraudsters are getting better with time – in addition to using the fake voices, they are also spoofing the phone numbers of family members who are “in trouble” and need money.
It is important to note that this is not the first time that fake voices have been used to steal money from people. In 2021, a very interesting case surfaced in which an investment bank in the United Arab Emirates lost $35 million after a “bank executive” called one of its branch managers and demanded that he transfer the funds to another account for a purchase that never happened.