Prosecutors say Malaysia-based ring used AI face-swapping to pose as Japanese police in video calls; eight victims lost about 18.65 million yen

The prosecutors' account. Minbao reported on 29 January 2026 that the Taichung District Prosecutors Office had broken up a Taiwan-Japan-Malaysia fraud ring whose Taiwanese lead suspect founded it in May 2025; its organisers set up a call centre in Kuala Lumpur, recruited Taiwanese, Japanese and Malaysian members and targeted people in Japan. Members phoned people at random over internet telephony, said their phone bills were unpaid and that they had to cooperate with a police and prosecutors' investigation. When a victim asked to check by video call, a member used AI deepfake face-swapping to appear as a Japanese police officer, and victims, deceived, transferred money to designated accounts, which the ring converted into the cryptocurrency USDT. Prosecutors said the scripts were generated with ChatGPT. They put the ring's illegal gains at 18,653,667 yen. The Liberty Times, reporting in June 2026 on an award to the prosecutor who led the case, gives the prosecutors' account that eight Japanese victims were deceived into transferring about 18.65 million yen.

Investigation. According to the prosecutors, Malaysian police first raided the call centre and arrested suspects, seizing Japanese police uniforms and forged police badges; the Liberty Times says ten members were arrested in Kuala Lumpur in August 2025 and five Taiwanese members were brought back to Taiwan. Prosecutors took victim statements in Japan and examined seized devices in Malaysia, then indicted four defendants for fraud, money laundering and organised crime, asking the court for heavy sentences and confiscation. They said the defendants had not compensated the victims.

Japanese reporting. PlusWeb3, summarising reports of 30 January 2026, says ten people including four Japanese and men from Taiwan were caught, that members claiming to be Osaka prefectural police held a video call with a man in his 70s in Tokyo, threatened that he was under investigation and took 5 million yen, and that the group used generative AI to convert the face of a uniformed person in real time into the photo on a fake police ID. It says the group is suspected of taking about 19 million yen from eight Japanese people since June 2025.

What is not known. The sources do not identify the face-swapping tool, how many video calls used it, or whether every victim saw a deepfake officer. No verdict is reported in the sources read.

Taichung prosecutors say eight people in Japan transferred about 18.65 million yen after members of a Malaysia-based ring, phoning about unpaid bills and an investigation, appeared in video calls as Japanese police officers through AI deepfake face-swapping; Japanese reporting describes a Tokyo man in his 70s who lost 5 million yen this way.

Malaysian police raided the Kuala Lumpur base in August 2025 and arrested ten members; five Taiwanese members were returned to Taiwan, and the Taichung District Prosecutors Office indicted four defendants for fraud, money laundering and organised crime, asking for heavy sentences and confiscation; prosecutors said the defendants had not compensated the victims. Japanese reporting relayed by PlusWeb3 says the alleged ringleader and others were indicted over a Tokyo victim's 5 million yen loss; it does not say in which country. No verdict is reported in the sources read.