Scammers Are Now Using A.I. To Mimic People's Voices Then Demanding Ransom Money For Kidnappings
(SOURCE)
Every parent’s worst nightmare came true for Jennifer DeStefano, a mother from Arizona, when she received a call from her 15-year-old daughter, Brie, screaming for help and a kidnapper demanding $1 million for her safe return.
In a state of panic, DeStefano froze and started thinking about how much she could afford to save her daughter’s life.
However, the terrifying reality turned out to be far from the truth – Brie was safe and sound on a ski trip, unaware of the terror her mother was experiencing.
This incident highlights the latest threat posed by increasingly sophisticated AI technology that only requires a three-second sample to clone a person’s voice and use it to harm their loved ones.
Recently, she received a call from an unknown number while her daughter was out of town skiing. Initially, the scammer demanded $1 million, but when DeStefano said she didn’t have the money, the amount was reduced to $50,000.
‘I pick up the phone and I hear my daughter’s voice, and it says, ‘Mom!’ and she’s sobbing.
‘I said, “What happened?” And she said, “Mom, I messed up,” and she’s sobbing and crying,’ she recalled to local Scottsdale station WKYT.
She then heard a man telling Brie to ‘put her head back down’ and ‘lie down.’
‘This man gets on the phone and he’s like, “Listen here. I’ve got your daughter. This is how it’s going to go down.
‘”You call the police, you call anybody, I’m going to pop her so full of drugs. I’m going to have my way with her and I’m going to drop her off in Mexico.”
A few years back I was in the middle of moving and swapped my Nissan Altima with my dad's pickup truck for a few days. While I had his truck, I received a call from my dad at about 8am. This is how it went:
William Williams: "Dave…did you get a DUI last night?"
Me: "Uhhh….no???"
William Williams: "Are you fucking with me? Because I just got a call from your mother saying YOU called her mom asking for $10,000 to bail you out of jail for a DUI."
Frantically starts freaking out for a split second, wondering if I did, in fact, get so blacked out the night before that I got a DUI and forgot about it
Me: "I don't know wtf you're talking about. I'm driving to work right now and woke up in my own bed"
William Williams: (confused) "Uhhh…okay. I'll call you back"
It was at that point I realized my grandma had been the victim of a scam. This wasn't good for 2 reasons: she's battling absurdly bad dementia and she would have forked up the money no problem had she had the mental ability to do so
Obviously once everyone realized it was a scam all was good, but now we're adding AI to the mix? Chief's mom and sister had a similar tale to the one above as well. Same with our friend Scott Darling. What in the fuck is wrong with people? We often joke about how awesome it'd be to run it back to the years 1990-2010, aka the "good years" of the internet.
Now technology is so advanced criminals can mimic a person's voice, hold that "person" hostage for ransom money, and probably get away with it at a decent enough clip. I mean, once is enough. Let alone however often this is happening. It's fucked up, scary and not a world me or anyone else wants to live in.
That's all I really gotta say about this. I hate where the world is. Everything stinks, especially and specifically the White Sox. Consider it a PSA in case you pick up your phone and your wife/gf/sister/brother/dad/mom/dog are on the other line begging for money to get out of a kidnapping. That said, don't assume it's just a boy crying wolf, either.