Skip to main content
NOPE
Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

Miami: scammers cloned immigration attorney Ángel Leal's face and voice with AI to defraud immigrants seeking legal help

From around October 2025, criminals used AI to clone the image, voice, name, signature and firm logo of Ángel Leal, a long-established immigration attorney in Doral, Florida. They created fake videos, look-alike websites, forged contracts and even fabricated Zoom 'immigration hearings' to persuade immigrants to pay for legal services Leal never provided. Immigrants were defrauded of money, and some believed their cases were progressing when they were not; Leal received one to two defrauded callers a day, changed his phone number, hired an anti-piracy firm that removed thousands of fake profiles and videos, and reported the fraud to local police and federal authorities.

AI system
Unidentified video tool
Occurred
Oct 2025
Reported
4 June 2026
Event location
United States
What the AI did
Depicted or impersonated the person
Reported harm
Reputational HarmFinancial LossLegal Harm
Whose AI use
Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Justice · Finance · Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources
3 claims: 3 corroborated. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 1 person

AI system as recorded: AI voice- and video-cloning / deepfake tools (not identified in the inspected reporting)

What Happened

Ángel Leal has practised immigration law in South Florida for more than 30 years, most recently in Doral. He realised in October 2025 that immigrants were calling his office about cases he had never handled, after scammers used AI to clone his image, name, voice and even fabricated hearings. In manipulated videos a digital version of Leal offers residency or citizenship 'without an exam', work permits or the return of deported people, directing viewers to a WhatsApp number where fake contracts bearing his firm's logo and forged signatures are exchanged and payment is requested through Zelle, Venmo or Cash App. Some fraudulent videos feature fake client testimonials or people posing as ICE agents. Leal told NBC News, NBC Miami, CBS News Miami and WLRN that the scheme has escalated sharply, that some victims end up with deportation orders believing their cases were in progress, and that he answers one to two defrauded callers a day. He hired an anti-piracy firm, changed his personal phone number, and reported the matter to Doral police and federal authorities; the American Bar Association and the American Immigration Lawyers Association describe a broader wave of AI-driven attorney impersonation exploiting fear under intensified US immigration enforcement.

Reported harm

An immigration attorney's identity was cloned with AI and used to defraud immigrants, causing him reputational harm and business disruption (he changed his phone number and hired an anti-piracy firm) and causing defrauded immigrants financial loss, with some reportedly left facing deportation orders after believing their cases were progressing.

Outcome

Ongoing

Leal filed a report with the Doral Police Department and said he is cooperating with federal authorities; the FBI's Chicago field office issued a public warning in May 2026 about scammers impersonating lawyers and immigration officials nationwide. Leal hired an online anti-piracy company that, by June 2026, had removed more than 6,600 fake videos and profiles (WLRN) / about 6,454 fake profiles since March (NBC Miami). No arrests are reported in the inspected sources.

What remains unknown

  • No individual defrauded immigrant is named and the total amount lost is not established; the reported per-victim figure (about $4,820/$5,000) comes from a Latin Times headline not inspected in full.
  • No arrests are reported and no defendant is identified.
  • Whether the fabricated 'deportation orders' outcome affected specific named people is not established.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: supported. Leal and multiple outlets state that his real videos were manipulated with AI to clone his face and voice; NBC News, NBC Miami, CBS Miami and WLRN carry his account, and an anti-piracy firm documented thousands of AI-generated fake profiles. The specific AI tools are not named.

3 claims: 3 corroborated. What the statuses mean

Corroborated Criminals used AI to clone Ángel Leal's image, name, voice, signature and firm logo, producing fake videos, look-alike websites, forged contracts and fabricated Zoom hearings that offered immigration services (residency, citizenship 'without an exam', work permits) he never provided.

Causal attribution. Leal's own account, carried by four independent outlets.

  • nbcnews.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'his image and name and even his voice have been cloned with artificial intelligence to deceive desperate immigrants'; 'fake contracts bearing his firm's logo, forged signatures, websites that mimic his site... entirely fabricated immigration hearings'.
  • nbcmiami.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'criminals are creating fake videos using his image, voice and name'; the WhatsApp-to-Zelle/Venmo script.
  • wlrn.org(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'scammers have used AI to produce fake immigration hearings over Zoom to dupe immigrants'.
Corroborated Immigrants were defrauded of money paying for services Leal never provided, and some ended up with deportation orders believing their cases were in progress.

Causal attribution. Reported by Leal and immigration-lawyer groups; individual victims are not named and the total is not quantified.

  • nbcmiami.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'some victims end up with deportation orders without having filed any real paperwork, believing their case was in progress'; payments via Zelle/Venmo/Cash App.
  • wlrn.org(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'It's gotten to the point where I literally have one to two people every day, all day, answering calls of people who have been defrauded or scammed'.
  • nbcnews.com(opens in new tab) context · English
    Leal describes the harm to 'other people's needs'; ABA/AILA describe victims paying scammers who impersonated lawyers.
Corroborated Leal changed his phone number, hired an anti-piracy firm that removed thousands of fake profiles and videos (about 6,454 since March per NBC Miami; more than 6,600 by June per WLRN), and reported the fraud to Doral police and federal authorities.

Causal attribution. Leal and his anti-piracy vendor, as reported; the two removal figures cover different windows.

  • nbcmiami.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    '6,454 fake profiles linked to these scams have been taken down' since March.
  • wlrn.org(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'in June alone... they had taken down over 6,600 fake videos and profiles'; 'Leal has filed a report with the Doral Police Department.'

Sources

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

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in English on 2026-09-17 (datePublished 2026-06-04). NBC News national report; Leal interview, FTC/FBI context, ABA and AILA comment. Applies to s1.

Read in English on 2026-09-17 (datePublished 2026-06-05). NBC6 South Florida; Leal interview, fake videos and WhatsApp/Zelle scheme; story translated from Spanish with an AI tool and editor-reviewed. Applies to s2.

Read in English on 2026-09-17 via the Internet Archive capture 20260728171300 (CBS live returns HTTP 406); datePublished 2026-06-09. CBS News Miami; Leal interview, the $2,200 residency-video scheme, ~6,500 profiles removed. Applies to s3.

Read in English on 2026-09-17 (datePublished 2026-08-20). WLRN Public Media; Leal realised the problem last October, one to two defrauded callers a day, 6,600+ removals in June, fake Zoom hearings, Doral police report. Applies to s4.

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

Event: South Florida (Doral/Miami); Leal practises there and reported to Doral police (WLRN, NBC Miami). Affected people are immigrants in South Florida. No court proceeding established.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-17: Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as an AI-impersonation case with real harm: a named attorney's likeness and voice were cloned to defraud immigrants, causing him reputational and business harm and causing victims financial and reported legal harm. Four independent chains, including his own on-camera interviews; victim count left partial because individual victims are unquantified.

People described

Ángel Leal (also styled Angel Leal Jr.), an immigration attorney in Doral, Florida, named in his own interviews; and immigrants seeking legal help who were defrauded, none of whom is named in the inspected reporting

People reported harmed in this case

At least 1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

Additional affected people are described without a reliable count.

One counted, identified harmed person: Ángel Leal, whose likeness and voice were cloned and whose practice was disrupted. An unquantified additional group of immigrants was defrauded (Leal reports one to two defrauded callers a day; one legal immigrant reportedly lost about $4,820 per a Latin Times headline not inspected in full); no reliable victim count is established, so the status is partial.

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

Tags

#deepfake#voice-clone#impersonation#immigration#fraud#united-states#florida

Cite this case

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

APA

NOPE. (2026). Miami: scammers cloned immigration attorney Ángel Leal's face and voice with AI to defraud immigrants seeking legal help. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-leal-ai-impersonation-immigration-scam

BibTeX

@misc{2026_leal_ai_impersonation_immigration_scam,
  title = {Miami: scammers cloned immigration attorney Ángel Leal's face and voice with AI to defraud immigrants seeking legal help},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-leal-ai-impersonation-immigration-scam}
}

Related cases

Medium Unidentified video tool

India: police say AI deepfake videos of Tamil Nadu CM Vijay offering aid defrauded people in several states; arrested Rajasthan man later granted bail

In 2026 AI-generated videos showing a simulated Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay speaking in a fabricated Hindi voice circulated on Facebook and other platforms, urging viewers to contact a WhatsApp number to receive money for education, medical treatment and other needs. The Tamil Nadu Crime Branch-CID detected the videos during routine monitoring, registered a case on 1 September 2026 under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act, and traced the scheme to Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. On 12 September a 28-year-old man from Alwar district was arrested with Rajasthan Police, brought to Tamil Nadu on a transit warrant and remanded in judicial custody; a phone, SIM cards and a CPU were seized. Investigators traced a man in Madhya Pradesh who had lost money, and said people in several states were cheated. The CB-CID is also examining similar videos posted from Facebook accounts suspected to be run from Pakistan. The Principal Sessions Court in Chennai refused bail on 14 October because the investigation was incomplete. On 23 October 2026 the Madras High Court granted him conditional bail, noting that he had been in custody since 12 September, that the investigation was complete, that the chargesheet was ready and that the phone allegedly used had been seized; he must report to the police daily. The prosecution told the court that he had created two Facebook accounts impersonating the Chief Minister, circulated the AI videos and collected Rs 16,000 as registration fees. His counsel said a friend generated the videos using his mobile number and accounts and that he had no knowledge of them. The allegations have not been tested at trial.

Medium Unidentified video tool

Surat, India: a deepfake video of Rajya Sabha MP Govind Dholakia was used to run an 'old coin' buying fraud; two men arrested and nine cybercrime complaints linked to their accounts

Surat Cyber Crime Police said a publicly available video of Rajya Sabha MP and diamond industrialist Govind Dholakia was manipulated with AI, its audio replaced by a voice-over in which he appeared to say that people holding old coins or currency notes could contact a number and receive lakhs or crores of rupees. The video circulated on Facebook and Instagram alongside fake 'Old Coin Company' profiles using his photos; people who responded were asked to pay Rs 1,000 to 1,500 by UPI as processing or registration fees and were told of a fabricated Reserve Bank of India warning to win their trust. After members of the public contacted Dholakia, his organisation SRK complained to police. Investigators traced the operation to Nuh in Haryana and arrested two men, aged 25 and 30, from Thathaula village; ten bank accounts were linked to them, and nine complaints on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal from across India, totalling about Rs 9.84 crore, were connected to those accounts.

Medium Unidentified Google AI tool (reported)

Gujarat railway police say two workers were detained on a train with fake tickets a man made for them with a Google AI app for Rs 2,000

In October 2026 a ticket inspector on the Somnath/Veraval-Jabalpur Express, after the train left Wankaner in Gujarat, found that two passengers were carrying fake tickets on their mobile phones; they were handed to the Railway Protection Force and railway police in Rajkot registered a case and detained them. According to Gujarat Samachar, the two were factory workers, one of them a minor, who wanted to go home and asked a man working at their factory for tickets; he made the tickets with the help of AI and Photoshop and charged Rs 2,000. Gujarat Samachar English reports that the railway police investigation traced the forged tickets to a Google AI application and WhatsApp, and that the man who made them was also arrested. The reports differ on the workers' role: Bombay Samachar says they were cheated and at first suspected nothing, while Gujarat Samachar English says all three accused, including the two passengers, were remanded to judicial custody. Gujarat Samachar English dates the check 15 October, and the reports name no specific AI product.

Low Google AI Overviews (reported)

Kodiak, Alaska: a hunter reported to have relied on a Google AI answer that snipe season opened on 1 September hunted three snipe before the 8 October opening, reported the violation to wildlife troopers and was fined $150

Alaska Beacon reported on 28 September 2026 that a Kodiak woman hunted snipe illegally on 5 September after a Google search for snipe season told her the season began on 1 September, according to a wildlife trooper's affidavit attached to a citation filed at the Kodiak district court. The outlet describes the answer as a Google AI overview. She hunted three snipe, grew suspicious on learning that duck season did not open until 8 October, checked the regulations and called troopers to report herself. The outlet reports the trooper said he ran an identical Google search and received identical incorrect information. She pleaded no contest and was fined $150, and told the outlet she felt shame and embarrassment. A Department of Public Safety spokesman said it was the first time he thought the agency had seen AI cited, and that she had acted correctly once she learned of the mistake. Google did not respond to the outlet's request for comment.

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