Deepfake romance scams targeting men in Asia rake in $46 million, 2 dozen people arrested

HONG KONG: Romance scams using deepfake artificial intelligence is on the rise with men falling prey to the tune of more than US$46 million in total.

CNN reported that earlier this week, Hong Kong police announced the arrest of more than two dozen members of a scam ring which targets men in Asia, from Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and even as far as India.

Police arrested 21 men and six women who were operating at a 4,000-square-foot industrial unit in Huang Hom district.

The suspects were between 21 and 34 years old and were highly educated, possessing degrees in digital media and technology. They were recruited by gangs who prey on local universities.

The accused work with IT specialists overseas, building a fake cryptocurrency platform where victims are coerced into making investments.

#HongKong police arrest 27 people in a $46 million #deepfake romance scam. Victims from multiple countries including India were deceived through AI-generated photos and videos.https://t.co/FdnX395Lj3

— News9 (@News9Tweets) October 17, 2024

Deepfake is defined as video or content in which a person’s face or body has been digitally altered so that they appear to be someone else.

“Pig butchering” scams, which refer to how scammers fatten up their victims by developing a long-term digital relationship, is a popular method, and this is a multibillion-dollar industry where targets are groomed to invest in bogus crypto sites. Deepfakes are then used to further convince these targets to part with their cash.

Hong Kong police say the romance scam usually starts with a text message, in which the sender – posing as an attractive woman – acts like she has the wrong number. They then strike up a conversation with the victims and eventually start to get romantic and intimate, planning a future together.

The police say the group is highly structured and they even have a manual teaching members how to take advantage of the “victim’s sincerity and emotion”.

Some of the steps include getting to know the victim’s worldview in order to create a tailor-made persona; inventing difficulties such as a failed relationship or businesses to “deepen the other person’s trust” and then painting a “beautiful vision” of the future to cajole the victim into “investing”.

The scam went on for a year before police caught on to the group. More than 100 mobile phones were recovered, an equivalent of $26,000 in cash was found and a number of luxury watches were seized during the raid.