He thought he was obeying his director's orders: trapped during a video, the employee transferred 23 million euros to crooks

Scammers used deepfake technology to pose as senior company executives (illustrative photo). Chris Montgomery – UNSPLASH

An employee of a Chinese financial center in Hong Kong thought he was participating in a video conference with senior executives from his company. All participants were "fake" made by artificial intelligence.

Scammers used deepfake technology to pose as senior company executives and their scheme worked.  

A deepfake is a video or audio recording made or modified using artificial intelligence. Deepfake images, for example, show people saying things they never said.

An employee of a company in a Chinese financial center in Hong Kong received "video conference calls from someone' #39;one posing as a senior executive at his company asking him to transfer money to designated bank accounts", indicated the Hong Kong police, cited by Le Figaro.

"Larger than life"

The employee therefore thought he was just obeying the orders of his financial director, who asked him for a huge transfer of money, the equivalent of 23 million # 39;euros. Problem: All the participants in this meeting were created by artificial intelligence as a scam and seemed "larger than life", according to BFM.

Piégé par une fausse visioconférence en "deepfake", un employé transfère 25 millions de dollars à des escrocshttps://t.co/CNISC8hGbI pic.twitter.com/gdhmcRe929

— BFMTV (@BFMTV) February 5, 2024

Around fifteen transactions

The employee thus naturally carried out around fifteen transactions on five different bank accounts for an amount of 25 million US dollars, or approximately 23 million euros.

"Scammers found publicly available videos and audios via YouTube, then used deepfake technology to imitate their voices… in order to encourage the victim to follow their instructions", explained a senior police official, Baron Chan, quoted by Le Figaro.

The employee who made the transfers realized the scam by calling his colleagues after this meeting.