Skip to main content
NOPE
Low reported severity Media Coverage

South Korean police say a foreign parent was sent a deepfake video of a daughter travelling in Korea crying for help while held captive, with a ransom demand

South Korea's National Police Agency disclosed on 7 November 2024 that around October 2024 a foreign national received on a smartphone a video showing a daughter, who was travelling in Korea, locked in a room, crying and asking to be saved. The sender said the daughter had been kidnapped and demanded a settlement payment to keep her alive. The parents told their consulate, and Korean police who responded confirmed that the daughter was safe; according to the police, the crying daughter was a fake video made with deepfake technology. Police used the case to warn that similar scams could occur in Korea. Police said the parents lived abroad and that, fortunately, the case caused no damage.

AI system
Unidentified video tool
Occurred
Oct 2024
Reported
7 November 2024
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Depicted or impersonated the person
Reported harm
Exploitation or Abuse
Whose AI use
Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Relationships · Finance · Justice
Evidence
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account
5 claims: 5 reported. 4 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 1 person

AI system as recorded: Deepfake video, made with unidentified AI tools, showing the daughter apparently held captive and crying for help

What Happened

The video. According to the National Police Agency as reported by Yonhap on 7 November 2024, around October 2024 a foreign national received on a smartphone a video in which a daughter who was travelling in Korea appeared locked in a room, crying and asking to be saved. The sender said the daughter had been kidnapped and demanded a settlement payment to keep her alive.

The response. The parents reported it to their consulate. Korean police responded and confirmed that the daughter was safe; the police said the crying daughter was a fake video made with deepfake technology. The National Office of Investigation disclosed the case to warn the public, noting 174 kidnapping-pretext phone frauds in Korea through September 2024 and that deepfake and voice-cloning tools learn from videos, photos and voices posted on social media.

Limits. One police disclosure, relayed by Yonhap and JoongAng; JoongAng quotes the police saying the parents lived abroad and that the case fortunately caused no damage. The family's nationality, the country where the parents lived, how the daughter's images were obtained and how police established that the video was a deepfake are not reported.

Reported harm

According to Korean police, a parent was sent a deepfake video of a daughter apparently held captive and crying for help, with a demand for money to keep her alive; police confirmed the daughter was safe. Police said the case caused no damage.

Outcome

Unknown

Korean police confirmed the daughter was safe after the parents told their consulate; the National Police Agency's National Office of Investigation disclosed the case on 7 November 2024 as a warning. Police said the case fortunately caused no damage; no arrest is reported.

What remains unknown

  • The family's nationality and the country where the parents lived; police say only that they lived abroad.
  • How the daughter's images were obtained and which tool made the video.
  • How police established that the video was a deepfake.
  • Whether anyone was identified or arrested.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: supported. Korean police, who responded and confirmed the daughter was safe, said the video of the crying daughter was a fake made with deepfake technology; JoongAng quotes them saying it was confirmed that the daughter's appearance in the video was a fake made with deepfake technology. The video depicted the daughter to deceive the parent into paying (depicted_or_impersonated). The technical basis of the police attribution is not disclosed.

5 claims: 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported Around October 2024 a foreign national received on a smartphone a video showing a daughter who was travelling in Korea locked in a room, crying and asking to be saved; police said the parents, foreign nationals, lived abroad.

Causal attribution. Police account via Yonhap.

  • yna.co.kr(opens in new tab) supports · Korean
    '지난 10월께 외국인 A씨의 스마트폰에 한국을 여행하던 딸이 방 안에 감금된 채 울면서 "살려달라"고 하는 영상이 전송됐다'
  • joongang.co.kr(opens in new tab) supports · Korean
    '지난 10월 외국에 거주하던 부모(외국인)는 한국을 여행 중인 딸이 방 안에 감금된 채 울면서 “살려달라”고 애원하는 영상을 받았다.'
Reported The sender said the daughter had been kidnapped and demanded a settlement payment to keep her alive; the parents told their consulate.

Causal attribution. Police account via Yonhap.

  • yna.co.kr(opens in new tab) supports · Korean
    '영상을 보낸 상대방은 "당신 딸을 납치했다. 딸을 살리고 싶으면 합의금을 보내라"고 부모를 협박했고, 부모는 이 사실을 영사관에 알렸다'
Reported Korean police who responded confirmed the daughter was safe, and the crying daughter was a fake video made with deepfake technology.

Causal attribution. Police finding, quoted directly by JoongAng and reported by Yonhap (one origin); the technical basis is not disclosed.

  • yna.co.kr(opens in new tab) supports · Korean
    '신고를 받고 출동한 한국 경찰은 즉각 딸의 안전을 확인했다. 울부짖던 딸은 딥페이크로 만든 가짜 영상이었다'
  • joongang.co.kr(opens in new tab) supports · Korean
    '영상에 등장한 딸의 모습이 딥페이크 기술로 만들어진 가짜였다는 점이 확인되면서'
Reported The National Office of Investigation disclosed the case on 7 November 2024 to warn that similar crimes could occur in Korea.

Causal attribution. Police disclosure as reported.

  • yna.co.kr(opens in new tab) supports · Korean
    '경찰청 국가수사본부는 7일 이러한 사건을 공개하면서 "국내에서도 유사한 사건이 발생할 가능성이 있으므로 각별히 주의해달라"고 당부했다'
Reported Police said that, fortunately, the case caused no damage, while warning that it showed how AI technology can be misused for crime.

Causal attribution. Police statement quoted by JoongAng; one source.

Sources

2 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in the original Korean on 2026-10-22 (HTTP 200). English renderings in this record are the research agent's (an AI's) own translations; no human translator reviewed them. Reports the Korean National Police Agency's disclosure of 7 November 2024. Applies to s1.

Read in the original Korean on 2026-10-22 by the verifier (live page, HTTP 200; bodies/verify-mix25-joongang.html/.txt). Quotes the National Police Agency's National Office of Investigation directly. English renderings are the research agent's (an AI's) own translations; no human translator reviewed them. Applies to s2.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

Police, quoted by JoongAng, say the parents were foreign nationals living abroad when they received the video; the country is not named, so the event and the affected person's country are left unknown. The video claimed the daughter was held in South Korea, where she was travelling and where Korean police confirmed her safety; that is the depicted person's location and the place of the police response, and it is not used as the place where the parent received the threat.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-22: Published as a core case (depicted_or_impersonated): South Korean police, who responded to the report, said a foreign parent was sent a deepfake video of a daughter apparently held captive with a ransom demand. The National Police Agency's disclosure, relayed by Yonhap and JoongAng, also says the case caused no damage; the technical basis of the attribution is not disclosed.

People described

A foreign national whose daughter was travelling in South Korea; the daughter was depicted in the fake video

People reported harmed in this case

At least 1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

At least one person, the parent who received the video and the ransom demand (police account). The report speaks of the parents in the plural and of the depicted daughter but describes no further harm to them, so the count is a minimum of 1.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#deepfake#fake-kidnapping#extortion#police-warning#south-korea

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). South Korean police say a foreign parent was sent a deepfake video of a daughter travelling in Korea crying for help while held captive, with a ransom demand. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2024-korean-police-say-foreign-parent-was-sent-deepfake-video-of-daughter-travelling-in-korea-held-captive-with-ransom-demand

BibTeX

@misc{2024_korean_police_say_foreign_parent_was_sent_deepfake_video_of_daughter_travelling_in_korea_held_captive_with_ransom_demand,
  title = {South Korean police say a foreign parent was sent a deepfake video of a daughter travelling in Korea crying for help while held captive, with a ransom demand},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2024-korean-police-say-foreign-parent-was-sent-deepfake-video-of-daughter-travelling-in-korea-held-captive-with-ransom-demand}
}

Related cases

Medium Unidentified video tool

Bengaluru: police say a man paid Rs 1.85 lakh after a dating-app contact threatened to circulate an AI-manipulated obscene video of him

Deccan Herald reports, citing Bengaluru police, that a 23-year-old man lost Rs 1.85 lakh in an alleged sextortion scam. He matched with a woman on a dating app on 27 September 2026 and exchanged numbers; he told police that he then received a WhatsApp video call from her number lasting five to six seconds. Police said he then received an obscene video manipulated using AI and the sender threatened to circulate it unless he paid. Fearing exposure, he borrowed money from a friend and transferred Rs 1.85 lakh to several UPI IDs between 27 and 29 September as the threats continued, a police officer said. Police registered a first information report on his online cybercrime complaint and are trying to trace the suspects. The report does not say how police established that the video was AI-manipulated, and the tool is not named.

High Unidentified video tool

Lake County sheriff says an Illinois man used an online AI service to make sexual videos of a child relative and her mother from photos; charges filed

The Lake County Sheriff's Office in Illinois says that on 25 March 2026 a man from unincorporated Antioch told deputies a stranger had handed him a phone containing sexual videos of a young child he identified as a relative, and that he later admitted the story was fabricated. According to the sheriff's office, investigators found that he had taken photographs of the child and the child's mother and used an online service to generate sexually explicit videos from those images, including videos depicting the child, and a forensic analysis of his phone found further AI-generated videos exploiting the child and her mother. He was charged on 1 April 2026 with five counts of producing child pornography and is detained awaiting trial; the child was taken into protective custody. The service is not named, and the charges are allegations.

Low Unidentified video tool

Mainz police say a man who refused an online contact's money demands was sent an AI-made fake news video of himself and threatened with its release

Mainz police reported on 23 July 2026 that a man who had met a supposed woman on an online platform refused repeated demands to send money as gift or payment cards. He then received a video that, according to the police, was evidently created with artificial intelligence: a fake news broadcast that used a picture of his face to warn about him. The sender threatened to publish the video and to report him to the police for an alleged fraud unless he paid. The man did not pay and filed a complaint; the police say no financial loss occurred and, as far as known, the video was not published. Hit Radio FFH, citing a police spokeswoman, reports that the broadcast warned women that he was a fraudster.

Medium Unidentified video tool

Rajasthan: a social-media influencer's video of a Ganga dip at Haridwar was manipulated with AI into an objectionable reel that went viral; she says she is mentally disturbed and cannot leave her house, and filed a cyber-crime complaint on 16 September 2026

A Rajasthan social-media influencer visited Haridwar with her family in June 2026 and on 6 June uploaded to Instagram a short video, recorded by relatives, of herself taking a dip in the Ganga at Har Ki Pauri wearing a salwar suit. About two months later she found that the video had been manipulated with AI into an objectionable version showing the same movements with her face and body portrayed 'in a shameful manner'; the fake reel went viral in the week before 20 September and drew objectionable comments and re-sharing. In a public appeal she asked whoever uploaded it to remove it, saying it was a matter of her dignity, that she was mentally very disturbed and had reached a point where she could not step out of her house. She filed a complaint with the cyber-crime police on 16 September 2026; the investigating Rajasthan Police Service officer said they were trying to identify who created and circulated the video and to have it removed, and that identifying the accused would take time. Dainik Bhaskar's English edition reported the case on 20 September in a 'Sunday Big Story' that does not name her.

If you or someone you know is struggling, free and confidential support is available. Find a helpline near you at Signpost.

Back to all incidents