Israel: indictment and police say a 20-year-old used AI-animated ID photos as fake verification videos to open credit cards in at least 33 people's names

The indictment as reported. i24NEWS (19 July 2026) reports that, according to the indictment, the defendant spent about half a year building a fraud scheme in which he impersonated at least 33 Israelis, held ten mobile lines registered under fictitious details, completed credit-card issuance in the victims' names and used the cards for purchases of about 67,000 shekels in Israel and abroad, with further attempted charges of more than 56,000 shekels. Investigators collected his correspondence with the card companies, forged identity cards and fictitious identification videos of the victims that he created with artificial intelligence and used to issue the cards, as well as recordings of calls in which a person is heard impersonating victims. All the victims who were questioned denied any connection to him, to the phone numbers or to the cards.

The police account. A police investigator quoted by Maariv (3 August 2026) said the suspect gained access to a database containing identity-card photos of dozens of citizens. Maariv reports, citing police, that he cut out the face photos and animated them with AI software, producing videos in which the card holder appears to speak the declarations that card companies require for remote identification. Investigators had to locate more than 50 people whose identities were used; some were frightened when the videos were shown to them, seeing themselves speaking words they never said. The credit companies detected the loan attempts and blocked them. The investigator said most of the people whose identities were used did not know it, and that the credit companies detected the activity, stopped it and bore the direct financial loss.

Not established. The AI tool, the exact period of the scheme, whether any of the people named on the cards bore costs, and the court's findings. The defendant kept silent during the investigation, and the charges are allegations.

According to the indictment as reported by i24NEWS, credit cards were issued in the names of at least 33 people through AI-made identification videos of them and used for about 67,000 shekels of purchases; a police investigator told Maariv that some of the people depicted were frightened when shown the videos of themselves, and that the credit companies bore the direct financial loss.

An indictment was filed on 16 July 2026 together with a request to hold the defendant in custody until the end of proceedings; his detention was extended pending a further hearing (Maariv, 3 August 2026). The indictment as reported also contains two further counts that do not involve AI (a SIM swap and a merchant payment-system intrusion).