(CNN) — A financial worker at a multinational company defrauded fraudsters of US$25 million by using deepfake technology to impersonate the company's chief financial officer in a video conference, according to Hong Kong police.
In the elaborate scam, the worker was tricked into participating in a video call with other employees, but it was all really a deep ruse, Hong Kong police said at a briefing on Friday.
“In the (multi-person) video conference, it turns out that everyone he saw was fake,” senior superintendent Baron Chan Shun-sing told the city's public broadcaster RTHK.
Chan said the worker became suspicious after receiving a message from the UK-based company's chief financial officer. Initially, the worker suspected it was a phishing email because it talked about the need to carry out a confidential transaction.
However, the worker put aside his initial doubts after the video call because others there looked and spoke like co-workers he recognized, Chan said.
Famous Hong Kong skyline. Dale de la Rey/AFP
Believing everyone on the call to be truthful, the worker agreed to send a total of 200 million Hong Kong dollars, about 25.6 million US dollars, the police official added.
The case is one of several recent episodes in which fraudsters are believed to have used deepfake technology to trick people into using publicly available videos and other images.
At a press conference on Friday, Hong Kong police said six people had been arrested in connection with such scams.
Chan said the eight stolen Hong Kong identity cards, which were allegedly lost by their owners, were used to make 90 loan applications and 54 bank account registrations between July and September last year.
According to the police, in at least 20 cases AI deepfakes have been used to fool facial recognition programs by imitating people who appear on ID cards.
The fraud involving the fake CFO was not discovered until the employee later consulted with corporate headquarters.
Hong Kong police did not release the name or details of the company or worker.
