Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified AI tool
The Itzehoe police directorate reported on 14 March 2024 that the Heide criminal police were dealing with two cases in which older people fell for fake websites where supposedly genuine celebrities promoted investments. In one, a seemingly genuine actor recommended an investment in a deceptively real interview, which the police say was created with artificial intelligence. Links on the sites led the victims, a pensioner and an older married couple, to a supposed trading platform; after friendly callers gained remote access to their computers, the couple transferred several thousand euros on top of the first payment. No gains were paid and the money was lost. The other case, a fake news article, is not described as AI-made.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 20/10/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified video tool (suspected)
The Ludwigshafen police directorate reported on 3 April 2025 that an older man from the Rhein-Pfalz district had seen a video online of a talk show on the German broadcaster ZDF in which large stock-market gains through a cryptocurrency were promised. The police say the video was presumably generated by AI. He then phoned a supposed personal financial adviser and over six months transferred about 27,000 euros to foreign accounts. He became suspicious when the promised gains were not paid out despite repeated requests and further fees were demanded instead. The police do not say who appeared in the video or how they reached their view.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 20/10/2026
May 2026 to Jun 2026Event location unknownUnidentified image and voice tool
The Oberbergischer Kreis police reported on 21 July 2026 that a woman had been in contact since mid-May with an unknown person posing as a widowed doctor from Ukraine, who exchanged chats, pictures and voice messages with her through a messaging service. On 23 June she transferred a mid four-figure sum the supposed doctor requested; bank staff held back a second, high four-figure transfer at the end of June. She reported the fraud on 20 July, and the police say first investigations showed that the pictures and voice messages she had received were apparently created with artificial intelligence.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 20/10/2026
May 2026Event location unknownUnidentified AI tool
The Gera regional police reported on 18 June 2026 that an older man in Altenburg, Thuringia, had fallen victim to investment fraud. According to the police, he found an online advert made with artificial intelligence that showed a well-known politician and promised high returns. After he contacted the fraudsters in mid-May, he gave them personal data and remote access to his computer; they took control of his online banking and made several transfers totalling about 42,000 euros. The police say about 28,000 euros was secured; the investigation continues.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 20/10/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified video tool
The Lippe police reported on 20 February 2026 that a man from the district had recently been defrauded through a supposed online trading platform, with a five-figure loss. According to the police, the fraudsters used adverts with AI-generated deepfake videos from supposed television programmes, repeatedly demanded fees after he registered and steered him to transfers to crypto exchanges. He was talked into taking out a loan to make further deposits, never received a payout, lost his savings and got into financial difficulty because of the loan. The police do not say whom the videos showed or how they established that they were AI-generated.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 20/10/2026
Oct 2026IndiaUnidentified Google AI tool (reported)
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.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 20/10/2026
6 May 2026GermanyUnidentified video tool (suspected)
The Mannheim police headquarters reported on 8 May 2026 that an older man in the Rhein-Neckar district had seen a video online in which a well-known German politician appeared to promote a financial platform. He contacted the platform by phone, and the callers obtained his account access data and on Wednesday 6 May emptied his account, causing a five-figure loss. The police say their first investigations found that the video was a fake and that the depiction of the politician was presumably simulated by artificial intelligence. They do not name the politician or say how they reached that finding.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 20/10/2026
Sept 2026Event location unknownBooking.com AI Trip Support (reported)
A British customer who booked a five-day villa stay in Positano, Italy, through Booking.com for a trip in September 2026 says the host then asked him to pay the full balance by bank transfer. According to his account in the Express (13 October 2026) and the Daily Mail (19 October 2026), he suspected a scam and asked the platform's AI Trip Support chat, called Dot, whether the request was legitimate; Dot, which introduced itself as still learning, replied that the property required full payment by bank transfer before arrival, and he transferred the money. On the morning of the trip the host cancelled, citing a burst pipe, and the couple later found that the villa did not appear to exist. The Express describes a £1,500 villa; the customer says he is still thousands of pounds out of pocket. Booking.com said the booking confirmation stated that payment would be taken by card, that it was processing a full refund and that the property was no longer listed. The chatbot exchange rests on the customer's account; Booking.com's quoted statement does not address it.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 20/10/2026
19 Aug 2026 to 14 Oct 2026IndiaChatGPT (reported)
The Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch said in October 2026 that it had arrested two men from Rajasthan who sold 686 counterfeit passes for Navratri garba events in Ahmedabad through discounted Instagram advertisements, collecting about Rs 8 lakh. According to the police account relayed by PTI, IANS, Ahmedabad Mirror and Gujarat Samachar, the accused prepared the passes and promotional material with ChatGPT, adding barcodes and QR codes so that they looked genuine, and sent them to buyers from email addresses resembling the organisers'. IANS reports that the case came to light when customers found their passes invalid at the venues. PTI and Ahmedabad Mirror say it came to light through a complaint filed on 16 October by a garba organiser whose event name and logo were used. How many buyers lost money is not reported; 686 is the number of passes.
Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 20/10/2026
Apr 2026Event location unknownUnidentified video tool
The Rhein-Sieg district police reported on 22 June 2026 that a man from a municipality in the district fell for a deep-fake video and invested in a dubious financial product. In April he came across the video by chance on the internet, opened an account and transferred money; when he asked for his money back after supposedly record gains in cryptocurrencies, everything turned out to be fake and, the police say, his small five-figure sum was lost. The police describe the scheme as cybertrading fraud in which fraudsters use AI to falsify the image and voice of prominent people; they do not say whom his video showed.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 19/10/2026
2025RussiaDeepSeek
A Moscow district court upheld an engineering company's dismissal of its head of sales for disclosing trade secrets, according to RAPSI and Pravo.ru reports of 27 July 2026. The grounds included uploading protected internal reports to the Chinese chatbot DeepSeek, forwarding company documents to her personal email and disclosing strategic information to a supplier. The court held that uploading trade secrets to DeepSeek is in itself a disclosure. She had sought a dismissal by mutual agreement and a contractual severance payment of 5 million roubles. The court rejected both, annulled a separate reprimand and awarded her compensation for moral harm. The decision was not yet final.
AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 19/10/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified image tool
Krefeld police reported on 29 April 2026 that unknown fraudsters obtained a four-figure sum from an older man through a dating app. Over several weeks he exchanged messages, first in the app and then on WhatsApp, with a supposed woman presented as a journalist in Lebanon who would soon return to Germany. He became suspicious at a last request for money for medical care after an alleged road accident and coma, and went to the police. According to the police's first findings, the photos of the supposed woman were AI-generated, including one showing her injured in a hospital bed. The money was paid with prepaid voucher codes.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 19/10/2026
2026ChinaUnidentified video tool
The Beijing News reported on 18 October 2026, in a follow-up to its investigation of 'Xiaohai' accounts on Chinese short-video platforms, that the accounts show AI-generated teenage boys who address older women as 'aunties and mothers' and steer them to high-priced shop windows. A university student told the paper that an older relative of a friend had been watching 'Xiaohai' videos and asked the friend why the boy was so badly off; the friend then found that the relative had already bought several orders of goods at high prices through the persona's shop window. The student made a counter-video with the same AI tools, posted on 28 September, in which the persona admits to deceiving viewers; after the friend showed it to the relative, the relative said they would not buy the persona's goods again. The amount spent and the goods bought are not reported. China National Radio's report the same day also describes the 'Xiaohai' videos as AI-generated and notes that many carry an 'AI-generated' watermark.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 19/10/2026
21 Oct 2025 to 3 Apr 2026United StatesCoCounsel
In a published opinion of 3 April 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit addressed the briefs a lawyer appointed under the Criminal Justice Act had filed for an indigent defendant appealing a sentencing enhancement in a drug-trafficking case. The court noticed that the principal brief's file name was 'CoCounsel Skill Results' and found three quotations that appear in no legal authority and misstatements of two precedents. The lawyer admitted that a staff member had used Westlaw's CoCounsel to create the first draft, that he repeated the process for the reply, and that the false quotations came from artificial intelligence he did not verify. The court denied him compensation for the appeal, referred the opinion for possible disciplinary proceedings and to the Kentucky Bar Association, and by separate order removed him, locked his briefs and ordered replacement counsel to file new ones, which it said further delayed resolution of the defendant's appeal. The court acknowledged his candour and his 40 years without discipline.
Core + contextual relations Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 19/10/2026
2026Event location unknownUnidentified AI model
Times of Malta reported on 18 October 2026, from interviews with anonymous former gambling-sector employees, that iGaming companies are laying off staff as they turn to AI. One former designer, who says they lost their job earlier in 2026, says their team had been told to train an AI model to make design and brand-guideline decisions, presented as a tool to help designers, and that the company later decided the model was fit enough to replace around half of the design team, including those who trained it. The designer says there was no notice, that they were asked to resign later that day and that the severance was the bare minimum. The outlet omitted company names, and the workers said they had signed non-disclosure agreements. GamingMalta, the industry promotion foundation, told the outlet it sees talent being redeployed rather than replaced by AI, and the article notes that others pointed to search-engine changes and higher UK gambling taxes. The account is a single anonymous worker's, relayed by one outlet; the employer and where the job was based are not stated.
AI relation unknown Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 19/10/2026
26 Mar 2026 to 19 Aug 2026AustraliaUnidentified AI drafting tool
On 19 August 2026 a Deputy President of Australia's Fair Work Commission ordered a self-represented former Aldi store worker to pay A$1,230 towards Aldi's legal costs. The decision records that his unfair dismissal application, lodged on the evening he was told of his dismissal on 26 March 2026, was obviously prepared using AI and still contained AI drafting notes, and that every email and document he filed was drafted using AI. He was notified of his dismissal three days short of the six-month minimum employment period. According to the decision, his AI-generated materials kept arguing about a different, irrelevant date (when the dismissal took effect), including after the Commission explained the correct test to him twice by email on 31 July 2026. He discontinued at the hearing on 5 August 2026. The Deputy President found that continuing after those warnings was unreasonable and said it was quite possible he had adopted AI as his quasi-legal adviser, while stating that using AI to draft submissions is not of itself unreasonable and that the responsibility was his. The decision notes that an appeal was lodged against it.
Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 18/10/2026
15 Jul 2026United StatesUnidentified AI drafting tool
In a published opinion of July 2026, the Arizona Court of Appeals found that a self-represented appellant's opening brief in a probate dispute contained eight citations, six of them deficient, including two cases that do not exist. In a written explanation and at a hearing on the false citations he acknowledged relying on generative AI to write the brief and said he did nothing to verify the citations. The court struck the inaccurate and false citations, rejected the appeal because no supportive authority remained, held that citing a hallucinated case is sanctionable whether or not it is intended, and ordered him to pay the share of the other party's attorney's fees traceable to the fake citations. Because he said he did not intend to deceive and is not legally trained, the court chose this narrow sanction over contempt or fines. It described the opinion as the first published Arizona ruling on generative AI hallucinations in filings.
Core + contextual relations Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 1 source · Added 18/10/2026
Feb 2025 to May 2025IndiaUnidentified video tool
The Indian Express reported in August 2025 that, according to the Pune police, a man from Pune fell prey to a deepfake video of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy and Sudha Murty promoting AI-based share-trading tools and lost Rs 43 lakh. According to the complaint, an Instagram advertisement promised Rs 17 lakh in 28 days on a Rs 21,000 investment and led to the video, which the probe found to be a deepfake; the video also allegedly included deepfake investor testimonials. Between February and May 2025 he received more than 120 calls from international numbers, was pressured and at times coerced into further payments, was advised to borrow from friends or take loans, and made 19 transfers totalling Rs 43.68 lakh to mule accounts before the callers stopped responding and he had exhausted his savings. The police registered an FIR after a preliminary inquiry. They do not say how they established that the video was a deepfake.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 18/10/2026
2026ChinaDoubao (reported)
According to his own social-media posts and video, as reported by Dahe Daily (15 May 2026) and National Business Daily (20 May 2026), a user in China who had booked flights from Shijiazhuang to Chongqing for 2 May 2026 decided to drive instead and asked the Doubao chatbot about the refund fee. Doubao told him he could safely refund and that the fee would be small (only 5% in National Business Daily's account, under 100 yuan in Dahe Daily's). He refunded without checking the airline's rules and was charged about 40%, 600 yuan. When he returned to the chatbot, Doubao said it would handle the claim, promised to pay him 600 yuan itself if the money was not recovered by 6 May and produced a 'compensation commitment letter'. On 6 May it said it would pay by midnight and asked for his WeChat payment code; on 7 May it said that as an AI it could not make transfers and admitted its error. He then used Doubao to draft a complaint, was told by it that he did not need a lawyer, and on 12 May submitted a suit against the app's operator, Beijing Chuntian Zhiyun Technology, according to a screenshot he posted (Dahe Daily names the Beijing Internet Court). His posts had been deleted by 19 May. Doubao's customer service told Dahe Daily the matter had been recorded; Doubao and ByteDance did not answer National Business Daily. Whether the court accepted the case, and its outcome, are not reported.
Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 17/10/2026
Nov 2025ChinaUnidentified image tool
Police in Yangpu district, Shanghai, say a customer extorted restaurants with medical records he had forged using AI software; Xinhua dates his first successful claim to November 2025. In the police account (Shangguan News, 26 February 2026) he claimed to have fallen ill after eating at a barbecue restaurant, showed a hospital visit record and medical invoice, and demanded 2,000 yuan in medical costs, threatening complaints and publicity; the restaurant paid. Police checked with other diners and the hospital, found he had no hospital record and the materials were forged, and say he confessed to using AI software to alter images of other people's medical records, replacing the name, date and amount. Police say he succeeded twice and failed twice, obtaining 2,500 yuan, and that he also filed complaints to market regulators with the forged material to pressure the restaurants. According to Xinhua's June report and the Procuratorate Daily, the Yangpu District People's Court convicted him of extortion and sentenced him to four months' criminal detention, suspended for four months, and a 2,000 yuan fine.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources · Added 17/10/2026