He was a soldier of misfortune.
As AI becomes more sophisticated, so do the scams that use it. A UK woman who fell in love with a “US army colonel” she met on Tinder later discovered he was a romance scammer after he conned her out of $20,000 by posting hyper-realistic AI videos.
“I’ve never been scammed like this in my life,” the 60-year-old victim, who goes by Mary, told the National Fraud Helpline as she recalled the romantic false flag operation.
The lonely Brit, who has reportedly been single for 20 years, was perusing Tinder looking for Mr. That’s when she ran into “Mike Murdy,” a suspected 61-year-old US Army colonel stationed in the UK, the Mirror reported.
“He sent me a video, wearing his uniform,” Mary told the publication. “He looked quite handsome.”
They started talking and the killer told the angry bachelor that he had lost his wife to cancer five years ago and had no family or children – Murdy even sent her a so-called photo of himself and his late wife.
Convinced that the boy soldier was the real thing, Mary gave the prankster GI her address and received a box, containing a decorative gold flower and other trinkets, a few days later. Included was a note that read: “You’re the one I want to be with, now and forever.”
It was then that this jaded cheater decided to inform her of an upcoming love mission. Murdy, who claimed to be from Nashville, told Mary that he was on one last mission to Cuba before retirement and had a life insurance policy on him and his late wife that he needed her help with. to get money.
In a follow-up video, Murdy said she had to wire money from her bank account in Halifax to have a bag of more than $766,000 delivered to her door.
These AI videos were particularly compelling because of the vivid images and also because they referenced the victim’s name as well as her recent online conversations with the predator, the National Fraud Hotline reported.
“Please trust me on this. Let’s make this happen so we can enjoy our retirement together,” Murdy said in a video, which showed him outside in a black beanie. A bank account number was provided via the Signal messaging app.
Believing his intentions to be genuine, Mary sent the money to the wolf in colonel’s clothing, after which she received a briefcase saying she would need another $12,600 to get a six-digit access code.
When the Brit understandably hesitated, Murdy sent her another video, where he was significantly more aggressive than in previous clips. The frustrated colonel said he was “unhappy” Maria seemed more “focused on money” than their relationship, insisting: “All I want is a happy retirement with you.”
So Maria finally capitulated and sent the dough, but became suspicious when the code never arrived. Finally, unable to take it anymore, the shocked girl reached into the bag to find it filled with blank sheets of paper, where she realized she had been tricked.
All told, she lost about $25,000 of her savings. She later revealed that Murdy’s image, voice and lyrics were all the product of an AI program designed to trick her, placing “stolen” in “stolen bravery”.
“It’s been heartbreaking,” laments Maria, who has been too embarrassed to tell anyone. “It’s really scary to think that scammers just created these videos.”
She is currently working with the National Fraud Helpline to help recover the money she lost it Joe.
“This scam is one of the most elaborate we’ve ever seen, as it involves AI as well as physical items being sent through the mail,” said Martin Richardson, a senior partner at the firm. “Especially for people who are not aware of AI, it [is] understandable how they would fall for such a scam.”
Meanwhile, Simon White, a managing partner at AI firm Time Machine Capital Squared, which is working with the National Fraud Hotline on an anti-fraud campaign, said: “We are witnessing the start of an arms race to create technology that can to help AI has been adopted by fraudsters.”
Coincidentally, the website of the US embassy in the UK published a PSA about cybercriminals posing as service members to scam unsuspecting victims.
Indeed, this stolen cyber value perhaps marks how fraud has evolved for the digital age.
Unfortunately, military masquerades aren’t the only way scammers are using AI.
In 2023, an Arizona mother claimed scammers used AI to clone her daughter’s voice so they could demand a $1 million ransom from her as part of a new horrifying voice scheme.
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Image Source : nypost.com