More than $US34 million ($3.37 million) in fraud has been seized as Hong Kong police use artificial intelligence to target victims.
As a Report South China Morning Post On Saturday, the investigation also shed light on some novel strategies employed by local dating fraud operators.
Some revolved around impersonating wealthy single women, with verbal incentives including learning Japanese, playing golf and tasting red wine worth more than HK$100,000 ($12,850), according to the report.
Such tactics were documented in notebooks kept by local law enforcement when officers arrested 31 people.
The arrests are part of a coordinated crackdown on a crime syndicate that uses AI to create credible images of attractive women to lure victims into love and investment scams.
Former Dallas police officer and CEO of CryptoTrac Byron Boston said. Decrypt “The combination of advanced counterfeiting technology and social engineering scams will pose significant challenges for cryptocurrency investigators and law enforcement.”
AI-generated images allow criminals to be more convincing and carry out more sophisticated and sophisticated frauds, he explained.
“For example, in November 2022, a Deep video Imitation of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried It was used in a phishing scheme where FTX users were trying to liquidate their crypto assets,” Boston explained.
In addition, social engineering scams are tricky, he said, “often involving lengthy efforts to build trust with victims.”
The seized books also pointed out that the criminal organization aims to recruit young people who want to earn money quickly. They tried to convince their victims that they were successful women in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.
“While these sophisticated methods create many obstacles, effective cooperation and swift action are critical to combating these crimes,” Boston said.
Still, such capabilities are not yet widespread and “many local law enforcement agencies in the United States do not have the necessary tools and expertise to track stolen cryptocurrency or participate in recovery efforts on international exchanges,” Boston added.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair.
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