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NOPE
Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

Amsterdam court jails man who used deepfake technology to pass a bank's face check with other people's IDs and open 47 accounts in their names

The Amsterdam District Court said in March 2026 that a 34-year-old man was suspected of opening 47 bank accounts in other people's names between 20 March and 14 November 2025 by using deepfake technology to mislead a bank's identity-verification system. At the hearing on 17 March 2026, the prosecution said he had beaten ABN AMRO's app check, which compares a face scan with the photo on an identity document, by replacing ID photos with his own and by adjusting his own face photos to resemble the ID photos; the judge noted that a selfie submitted with one woman's identity document showed features of her passport photo. The prosecution said identity documents of the victims in whose names accounts were opened were found on his phone. The man denied knowing of the fraud before late September 2025, and the court reopened the investigation on 31 March to examine his phone data. According to AT5, on 17 June 2026 the court sentenced him to two and a half years in prison, six months of it suspended, and ordered him to pay 13,000 euros to ABN AMRO; AT5 reports that he pasted his victims' facial features onto his own face with AI and that some of the accounts were used for bank-helpdesk fraud and cash withdrawals.

AI system
Unidentified image tool
Occurred
20 Mar 2025 to 14 Nov 2025
Reported
17 March 2026
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Depicted or impersonated the person
Reported harm
Exploitation or AbuseOther Material Harm
Whose AI use
Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Finance · Privacy · Justice
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources
7 claims: 2 documented, 5 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 2 people

AI system as recorded: Deepfake technology used to alter face scans so that they matched other people's identity-document photos in ABN AMRO's account-opening app, according to the Amsterdam District Court and the prosecution (tool not identified)

What Happened

The scheme as charged. The Amsterdam District Court's press release says a 34-year-old man was suspected of opening 47 bank accounts in the names of other people with the help of deepfake technology between 20 March 2025 and 14 November 2025, using it to mislead the identity-verification system. ABN AMRO lets customers open an account in a phone app by scanning an identity card or passport and then their face, and checks that the passport photo and the face scan show the same person.

The hearing. At the hearing on 17 March 2026, NOS reported, the prosecution said the man got past the check by replacing the photo on identity documents with a photo of himself and by adjusting his own face photos so that they resembled the passport photos. The bank noticed the fraud in spring 2025: an account was opened on 8 April in a man's name but with the Amsterdam man's face, and in May another was opened with a woman's identity document; the judge remarked that the mouth and eyes in the suspect's selfie looked very like those in the woman's passport photo. The prosecution said identity documents of victims in whose names accounts had been opened, and email accounts linked to those accounts, were found on his phone. He had been arrested at a border check in December, at the end of 2025 according to AT5, with a large number of bank cards.

The defence and the interim ruling. The man said he made videos of his own face on someone else's instructions without knowing what they were used for, and in a written statement said he only knew of the offences from 28 September 2025. On 31 March 2026 the court reopened the investigation so that the data on his phone could be examined to test that statement, and kept him in pre-trial detention.

The verdict. AT5 reports that on 17 June 2026 the court followed the prosecution's demand and sentenced him to two and a half years in prison, six months of it suspended, weighing his earlier convictions for property offences, and ordered him to pay 13,000 euros to ABN AMRO for the cost of investigating the fraud. According to AT5 he opened 47 accounts by pasting his victims' facial features onto his own face with AI, part of the accounts was used for bank-helpdesk fraud and cash withdrawals, and his phone showed he had searched how to open bank accounts and asked ChatGPT how to bypass identity verification. He always denied the charges.

What is not known. The deepfake tool is not named, the number of distinct people whose identities were used is not given, the losses of the bank-helpdesk fraud victims are not stated, and no appeal is reported. The written judgment was not inspected.

Reported harm

According to the Amsterdam District Court, the prosecution and AT5's report of the verdict, a man used deepfake technology to make his face scans match other people's identity-document photos, opening 47 ABN AMRO accounts in their names; some accounts were then used for bank-helpdesk fraud and cash withdrawals.

Outcome

Resolved

After an interim judgment on 31 March 2026 that reopened the investigation into the phone data, the Amsterdam District Court on 17 June 2026 sentenced the man to two and a half years in prison, six months of it suspended, following the prosecution's demand, and ordered him to pay 13,000 euros in damages to ABN AMRO for the cost of its fraud investigation, according to AT5. Whether an appeal was lodged is not reported.

What remains unknown

  • Which deepfake tool was used.
  • How many distinct people's identities were used for the 47 accounts.
  • The losses of the people defrauded through the accounts and whether the verdict was appealed.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The Amsterdam District Court's press release states that the man was suspected of using deepfake technology to mislead the bank's identity-verification system and open 47 accounts in other people's names. At the hearing the prosecution described how he adjusted his own face photos to resemble the ID photos, and the judge noted that a selfie submitted with a woman's document showed features of her passport photo. AT5 reports that he was convicted and sentenced for opening the accounts by pasting his victims' facial features onto his own face with AI. The specific tool is not named and the written judgment was not inspected.

7 claims: 2 documented, 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Documented The Amsterdam District Court said a 34-year-old man was suspected of opening 47 bank accounts in other people's names with deepfake technology between 20 March and 14 November 2025, using it to mislead the identity-verification system.

Causal attribution. The court's own statement of the charge; documents what was charged, not guilt.

  • rechtspraak.nl(opens in new tab) supports · Dutch
    'Hij zou 47 bankrekeningen geopend hebben' ... 'met behulp van deepfake-technologie' ... 'Dit gebeurde in de periode van 20 maart 2025 tot en met 14 november 2025' ... 'Hij zou deepfake-technologie gebruiken om het identiteitsverificatiesysteem te misleiden'
Reported At the hearing the prosecution said the man got past ABN AMRO's app check by replacing ID-document photos with a photo of himself and by adjusting his own face photos to resemble them, and the judge noted that a selfie submitted with a woman's identity document showed features of her passport photo.

Causal attribution. Prosecution's account and the judge's remark, reported from the hearing.

  • nos.nl(opens in new tab) supports · Dutch
    'Volgens het OM omzeilde de man dat door de foto op ID-bewijzen te vervangen door een pasfoto van hemzelf' ... 'Ook paste hij volgens justitie zijn eigen gezichtsfoto' ... 'aan, zodat die leken op de pasfoto' ... 'In de gezichtsscan van de man zijn kenmerken uit de pasfoto van de vrouw te zien'
Reported The prosecution said identity documents of victims in whose names accounts were opened were found on his phone.

Causal attribution. Prosecution's statement in court.

Documented In a written statement the man said he only knew of the offences from 28 September 2025, and on 31 March 2026 the court reopened the investigation to examine the data on his phone.

Causal attribution. Interim ruling and the content of his written statement, documented by the court's release.

  • rechtspraak.nl(opens in new tab) supports · Dutch
    'waarin hij verklaarde dat hij vanaf 28 september 2025 wetenschap had van de strafbare feiten' ... 'De rechtbank heropent daarom het onderzoek ter terechtzitting'
Reported According to AT5, on 17 June 2026 the court followed the prosecution's demand and sentenced him to two and a half years in prison, six months of it suspended, and ordered him to pay 13,000 euros to ABN AMRO.

Causal attribution. Verdict as reported by AT5; judgment text not inspected.

  • at5.nl(opens in new tab) supports · Dutch
    'krijgt 2,5 jaar cel' ... 'De rechtbank ging mee met de eis van het OM' ... '13.000 euro schadevergoeding betalen aan ABN Amro' ... 'Van de 2,5 jaar cel zijn zes maanden een voorwaardelijke straf'
Reported AT5 reports that he opened the 47 accounts by pasting his victims' facial features onto his own face with AI, and that part of the accounts was used for bank-helpdesk fraud and cash withdrawals.

Causal attribution. AT5's account of the convicted conduct; consistent with the court's and prosecution's deepfake description.

  • at5.nl(opens in new tab) supports · Dutch
    'Hij wist 47 rekeningen te openen door gezichtskenmerken van zijn slachtoffers met AI op zijn eigen gezicht te plakken' ... 'Een deel van deze bankrekeningen is gebruikt voor bankhelpdeskfraude en het opnemen van contant geld'
Reported The man denied involvement in the fraud during the earlier period at the hearing, and AT5 reports that he always denied the charges.

Causal attribution. Counterevidence: the defendant's denial.

Sources

3 sources inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in Dutch by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-26; English renderings are the agent's own translation. Press release of the Amsterdam District Court on its interim judgment, 31 Mar 2026; HTTP 200. Applies to s1.

Read in Dutch by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-26; English renderings are the agent's own translation. NOS report of the 17 Mar 2026 hearing (prosecution and judge's statements in court); HTTP 200. Applies to s2.

Read in Dutch by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-26; English renderings are the agent's own translation. AT5 report of the 17 Jun 2026 verdict; HTTP 200. Applies to s3.

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

The Amsterdam District Court in the Netherlands heard the case, so NL is the court country. The sources do not state where the accounts were opened from or where the people whose identities were used live, so no event or affected-person country is recorded from the court's seat or the bank's nationality.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-26: Published as a core case (depicted_or_impersonated): a Dutch court and prosecutors say a man used deepfake technology to make his face scans match other people's ID photos and open 47 bank accounts in their names, and the court convicted him in June 2026 according to AT5. Private names are not used.

People described

People whose identity documents were used to open 47 ABN AMRO accounts in their names, including a man and a woman described at the hearing; the prosecution calls them victims. Some of the accounts were then used for bank-helpdesk fraud against others

People reported harmed in this case

At least 2 people

0 AI participants · 2 other people harmed

The court says 47 accounts were opened in the names of others, and the hearing report describes two of the identity holders (a man and a woman); the number of distinct people is not stated, so two is the documented minimum. Victims of the bank-helpdesk fraud run through the accounts and the bank itself are not counted.

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

Tags

#deepfake#identity-verification#bank-account-fraud#identity-theft#criminal-conviction#netherlands

Cite this case

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

APA

NOPE. (2026). Amsterdam court jails man who used deepfake technology to pass a bank's face check with other people's IDs and open 47 accounts in their names. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-amsterdam-court-jails-man-who-used-deepfakes-of-other-peoples-id-photos-to-open-47-bank-accounts-in-their-names

BibTeX

@misc{2025_amsterdam_court_jails_man_who_used_deepfakes_of_other_peoples_id_photos_to_open_47_bank_accounts_in_their_names,
  title = {Amsterdam court jails man who used deepfake technology to pass a bank's face check with other people's IDs and open 47 accounts in their names},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-amsterdam-court-jails-man-who-used-deepfakes-of-other-peoples-id-photos-to-open-47-bank-accounts-in-their-names}
}

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