Spanish police have arrested six people behind a series of large-scale cryptocurrency investment scams using AI deepfakes to lure victims.
Codenamed Coinblack_Wendmine, the operation was launched by the Spanish Police Agency (Policia National) in 2023 after receiving several complaints from victims. The agency then expanded the investigation and discovered that hundreds of victims worldwide had been "trapped".
"With the help of AI, the fraudsters created fake advertisements featuring famous people from different countries, with the common goal of recommending investments in products they specified," the Policia National said in a statement, emphasizing that "this significantly increased the trust of the victims".
According to the police, the scam is carried out in several stages. First, they use "emotional bait", trying to get to know the victim and become close, then they pose as "financial advisors" and convince them to invest in a product, usually a cryptocurrency project they have drawn up.
To increase the chance of success, they often research the victim very carefully, then use AI algorithms to select people whose profiles match the requirements. Once approached, they continue to create deepfake videos of celebrities promoting that product to convince the prey to see the "safety" of the investments. Initially, the victim will receive some profits after investing in the project. In fact, the numbers have been manipulated behind the scenes.
However, at some stage, the scammer will announce that the investment has been "blocked" or "locked" due to some operation and blame the victim. To “fix” the scam, the only way is to deposit a large sum of money if you want to withdraw the entire account. However, after depositing, they will ask for more money or immediately block all contact with the victim.
In the final stage, the scammer even uses AI deepfake with the voice of a police officer, agent or lawyer and announces that the money has been recovered. However, to get it back, the victim needs to pay an additional “tax”.
According to the representative of Policia National, by this trick alone, up to 208 victims worldwide have been scammed out of up to 20.9 million USD. The six people arrested are aged 34 to 57, living in the Granada and Alicante regions of Spain.
In addition, the police also seized 100,000 euros, mobile phones, computers, hard drives, weapons and many other documents. To conceal their actions, the group set up many front companies to launder money. The leader of the group used more than 50 different aliases.
Policia National advises people to be wary of promises of unusually high returns, and to thoroughly research investment platforms, especially their legitimacy and reliability, before depositing any money on them. If the platform pressures them to deposit money before withdrawing, they should not do so but instead report it to the authorities.
"AI-generated deepfake videos are becoming more and more realistic, so don't trust them. Instead, equip yourself with knowledge about investing, artificial intelligence and Internet safety solutions," Policia National added.
In mid-2020, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said that Australians will lose up to $8 million in 2024 alone due to scammers using online investment platforms and taking full advantage of deepfakes. The most common trick is to use deepfake images with fake news articles and websites to trick victims into believing that celebrities are asking them to donate money.
So far, many experts and organizations around the world have issued a series of warnings about the use of AI for fraud. Evan Dornbush, a former cybersecurity expert at the US National Security Agency (NSA), told Forbes that AI can help scammers create credible messages faster and at a lower cost. Meanwhile, the European police agency Europol warned that AI is contributing to the acceleration of crime. US officials say the best way to avoid being scammed is to "never trust people who accept only digital currency as payment and promise huge returns on small investments."