A mother was horrified by an online kidnapping scam where she believed her daughter was making a pleading call after she was kidnapped, but she says it's not just about deceiving her family out of money, but also about kidnapping her daughter. It was all an illusion. [the mother] In the same way.
“It's been up and down,” Jennifer DeStefano, a mother from Arizona, said Sunday on “Fox & Friends Weekend.”
“She called me crying and sobbing. I asked her what happened and she said, 'Mom, I messed up.' I said, 'Okay, what did I do?' What happened?” Then the man told her to put her head back and I got worried so she said, “Mom, these bad men are getting me, please help me.'' Help me, help me.''Then the man answered the phone and told me, “I have a girlfriend,'' and the phone went off. Midway through the conversation, she heard it as if the phone had been ripped out of her hands. ”
Scammer uses AI to replicate woman's voice, terrorizes family with fake ransom call: 'Worst day of my life'
This photo illustration shows the passcode security screen of a mobile phone in Warsaw, Poland. ((Photo courtesy: STR/NurPhoto, Getty Images))
DeStefano said she was parked at her daughter's dance studio when she received the call, and a man's voice on the other end threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the situation. .
“Not only did he want the money, he wanted to physically kidnap me. So when we were finally able to find her, he was trying to arrange. But… That was one of my biggest concerns, was that this is how people often actually physically seduce or kidnap other people instead of just using them for money. did.”
Her case is one of many that have gained attention since fraudsters began exploiting advances in AI.
Arizona mother talks about AI phone scam pretending to kidnap her daughter: 'It was totally her voice'
The scammers called Jennifer DeStefano and used AI voice cloning technology to imitate her daughter's voice. (Left: Jon Michael Raasch/Fox News, Right: Pau Varena/AFP via Getty Images)
The most notable recent case involves a 17-year-old Chinese student, Cai Chuan, whose family paid around 80,000 yen in ransom after scammers convinced her family that she had been kidnapped and was in danger. I sent the dollar. According to local police, Qiang was also a victim of a crime and claimed to have disappeared after being isolated at the direction of the police.
He was found safe last weekend.
How scammers are using your SNAPCHAT and TIKTOK posts with AI schemes
DeStefano described the macabre realism used to trick families into believing their loved one is in danger.
“It was 100 percent my daughter's voice,” she said of the call she received.
Riverdale police filed a missing person report for 17-year-old Kai Chuan early Friday morning, but he was later found. (Riverdale Police Department)
“That was the way she cried. That was the way she talked to me. We had a two-way conversation. The only way I was actually able to find her was because another mother I was able to call my husband, and he was able to do that.'' He located her and got her on the phone with me. But I still couldn't believe she was safe until she talked to her and confirmed that she was really the one I was talking to. At first she didn't believe, so she…didn't believe. She had no idea who was who, as she was sure of her voice to the kidnapper. ”
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Voice cloning fraud is becoming increasingly common, with experts warning against its proliferation as well as tampering such as deepfakes and other advanced attacks.
