{"id":5803,"date":"2024-10-17T14:58:06","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T19:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.darkreading.com\/cyberattacks-data-breaches\/hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m"},"modified":"2024-10-17T14:58:06","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T19:58:06","slug":"hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/2024\/10\/17\/hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong Crime Ring Swindles Victims Out of $46M"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hong Kong police <\/span>arrested 27 people<\/a><\/span> Monday for their involvement in a deepfake scam operation, stealing <\/span>$46 million<\/a><\/span> from the scam’s victims.<\/span><\/p>\n

The scammers used AI face-swapping technology to create female personas for online dating, using tools to alter their appearance and voices. <\/span><\/p>\n

They then contacted their victims via social media platforms using these AI-generated photos of people with made-up personalities, occupations, and backgrounds.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the victims began requesting video calls to become more familiar with the person they were communicating with, prompting the scammers to turn to <\/span>real-time deepfakes<\/a><\/span>, which transformed the scammers into attractive women, adding legitimacy to the fraud and gaining the trust of those that were being duped.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The syndicate presented fabricated profit transaction records to victims, claiming substantial returns on their investments,” said Fang Chi-kin, head of the New Territories South regional crime unit.<\/span><\/p>\n

The victims realized that they had been scammed after attempting to withdraw money from their accounts without success.<\/span><\/p>\n

The police seized computers, phones, and just over $25,000 in funds and luxury watches from the crime ring’s headquarters, a 4,000-square-foot building in Hong Kong.<\/span><\/p>\n

They also arrested six individuals who were recruited to set up cryptocurrency trading platforms, five of whom were reportedly potentially associated with Sun Yee On, a crime gang that operates in Hong Kong and China.<\/span><\/p>\n

These developments come in the wake of a recent <\/span>United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report<\/a><\/span> warning of the technological advancements crime syndicates are making to carry out cyber fraud in Asia, such as the use of <\/span>deepfake technology<\/a><\/span>. Some 10 different deepfake software providers were identified, selling their services via Telegram to criminal groups in Southeast Asia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hong Kong police arrested 27 people Monday for their involvement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":5804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[809],"class_list":["post-5803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dark-reading"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m.png?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1",1920,1080,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m.png?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m.png?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m.png?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m.png?fit=1536%2C864&ssl=1",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m.png?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1",1920,1080,true],"chromenews-featured":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m.png?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1",1024,576,true],"chromenews-large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m.png?resize=825%2C575&ssl=1",825,575,true],"chromenews-medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m.png?resize=590%2C410&ssl=1",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Dark Reading","author_link":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/author\/darkreading\/"},"category_info":"Uncategorized<\/a>","tag_info":"Uncategorized","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/hong-kong-crime-ring-swindles-victims-out-of-46m.png?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}