He was a soldier of misfortune.
As artificial intelligence 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 swindled her out of over $20,000 by deploying surreal AI videos.
“I have never been cheated like this in my life,” said the 60-year-old victim, who is around Mary. National Fraud Helpline Remembering this romantic false flag operation.
Lonely Britney, who has reportedly been single for 20 years, was perusing Tinder in search of a Mr Right when she came across “Mike Murdy”, an alleged 61-year-old US Army colonel stationed in the UK. Mirror reported.
“He sent me a video of him wearing his uniform,” Mary told the publication. “He looked quite handsome.”
They began talking and the duper soldier told the grieving Singleton that he had lost his wife to cancer five years earlier, and had no family or children – Mardy even sent him a purported photo of her and her late husband. .
Convinced that the soldier boy was the real deal, Mary gave GI Jock her address and several days later a box arrived, containing a decorative gold flower and other items. It also included a note that read, “You are the one I want to be with now and forever.”
Then this fraudster decided to give her information about the upcoming mission of love. Murdy, who claimed he was from Nashville, told Mary that he was on his last mission to Cuba before retirement and that he had a life insurance policy on him and his deceased wife that he needed her help to cash out. Was.
In a follow-up video, Murdy said he had to send money from his Halifax bank account to get the briefcase containing more than $766,000 delivered to his door.
According to the National Fraud Hotline report, these AI videos were incredibly credible due to the vivid images and also because they contained the victim’s name as well as context of her recent online interactions with the swindler.
“Please trust me on this. Let’s make this possible so we can enjoy our retirement together,” Murdy said in a video, in which he was seen wearing a black hat outside. A bank account number was provided through the messaging app Signal.
Believing that her intentions were true, Mary sent money to the wolf in the colonel’s clothing, after which she received a briefcase containing a note stating that she would need to pay another $12,600 to receive a six-digit access code.
When the British obviously hesitated, Murdy sent him another video, where he was more aggressive than the previous clip. The disappointed colonel said he was “unhappy” Mary was “more focused on money” than their relationship, and insisted: “I only want a happy retirement with you.”
So eventually Mary caved in and sent the flour, but when the code didn’t arrive she became suspicious. Ultimately, unable to tolerate it any longer, the terrified girl broke open the briefcase and found that it was filled with blank sheets of paper, after which she realized that she had been duped.
All told he lost about $25,000 of his savings. She later learns that Mardy’s image, voice, and text were all the product of an AI program designed to fool her, putting the “stealing” into “stolen valor”.
“It’s heartbreaking,” lamented Mary, who is too embarrassed to tell anyone. “It’s really scary to think that fraudsters made these videos.”
She is currently working with the National Fraud Helpline to help recover lost money aye Who.
Martin Richardson, a senior partner at the company, said, “This scam is one of the most elaborate we have ever seen, involving AI as well as physical items sent through the post.” “Especially for those unfamiliar with AI, it [is] It is understandable how they would fall into this kind of fraud.”
Meanwhile, Simon White, managing partner of AI firm Time Machine Capital Squared, who is working with the National Fraud Hotline on the anti-fraud campaign, said, “We are seeing the beginning of an arms race to create technology that can Can help. Adopted by fraudsters.
Incidentally, the website of US Embassy posts in Britain issued PSA Cyber criminals are accused of duping unsuspecting victims by posing as service members.
Indeed, this cybernetic stolen valor perhaps best reflects how fraud has evolved in the digital age.
Unfortunately, the military façade isn’t the only way fraudsters are using AI.
In 2023, an Arizona mother claimed scammers Used AI to clone his daughter’s voice So that they can demand a ransom of $1 million from him as part of a sinister new voice scheme.
