9 Jul 2025United StatesUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)
A Hillsborough County woman told WFLA that she handed over $15,000 after a caller sounded like her daughter and another person claimed the daughter needed bond money. The report dates the call to the preceding Wednesday, 9 July 2025. The family believes the voice had been generated from social media videos with AI. A later demand was stopped when the family reached the real daughter. The woman said the money was savings she shared with her retired husband. Technical confirmation of voice cloning is unavailable.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 30/09/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified voice-cloning tool
A Chicago-area man told ABC7 that he sent $10,000 in cryptocurrency to someone posing as Elon Musk. The outlet reports that the scammer used AI-assembled voice messages using Musk's voice, alongside social media messages, apparent investment returns and a promised vehicle. The man said he could not retrieve the money after several months and was struggling to pay ordinary bills. The beginning of the contact and the technical creation of the messages remain unknown.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 30/09/2026
May 2026United StatesUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)
ABC7 (KGO-TV, 24 May 2026) and ABC News (a Good Morning America segment, 26 May 2026) reported that a Bay Area woman received a call from an unknown number in May 2026. The caller said the woman's adult daughter had been kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel and played a voice the woman believed was the daughter's, in panic. The woman followed the caller's instructions for about five hours, feared for the daughter's life and wired $5,400 to Mexico. The woman then phoned the daughter, who said the daughter was at work, and realized the call was a scam. ABC7 states that scammers used artificial intelligence to mimic the daughter's voice, and ABC News describes AI as what the woman suspects was used. Neither outlet reports an analysis of the audio or a police finding about a cloned voice. An Operation Shamrock representative quoted by both outlets spoke of voice cloning in general terms and not about this call. ABC7 reports that Martinez police said they are investigating, and the woman said the money is not expected to be recovered. Both outlets rest on the woman's own account. The woman is described by role and the daughter is not named.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/09/2026
23 Mar 2026 to 24 Mar 2026United StatesUnidentified voice-cloning tool
The Spokesman-Review (8 May 2026) reported that a 75-year-old man in Washington state took a call on Monday 23 March in which a crying voice presented as the man's adult daughter said an accident had happened and asked for help. Male voices then described a collision and said the daughter had been taken hostage. The newspaper states that the daughter's voice on the call was an AI-generated copy and that investigators later surmised the callers used a recording of the daughter's voice with a program that mimicked the speech pattern. Over about 30 hours the callers directed the man to banks and stores in Washington and Idaho, where $13,000 was wired. The man was about to withdraw $17,000 when a bank employee stalled and police were alerted, and police then reached the daughter, who confirmed being at home and safe. The newspaper says none of the wired money had been recovered when the article was published. The man says it took days to start feeling normal again. The report rests on the man's account, a bank employee's account and a police report quoted by the newspaper. The article gives the call date as Monday 23 March without a year. The record uses 2026 because 23 March fell on a Monday only in 2026 among the years 2023 to 2026. The range starts at 2023 because the article says the Federal Trade Commission began warning about AI voice-copy scams as early as 2023, and it ends at 2026 because the article was published on 8 May 2026.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/09/2026
6 Jan 2026IndiaUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)
The New Indian Express (9 January 2026) reported that a woman who runs a small play school in Indore said that on the night of 6 January a call came from an unknown number close to a cousin's number, in a voice that sounded exactly like the cousin's. The caller said a close friend needed urgent cardiac surgery at a private hospital in Indore and asked for money to be forwarded to a QR code. A total of Rs 97,500 was sent in four transactions. None of the money the caller had said was being credited arrived, the cousin denied making the call, and the calling number has been switched off. An Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) in Indore said preliminary investigations strongly suggest AI-based voice modulation technology was used. The Free Press Journal, The420 and Malwa Abhi Tak reported the same call. All four outlets appear to rest on the woman's account and police statements, no audio analysis or AI tool is reported, and the police case against unidentified persons was described as ongoing.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/09/2026
Jul 2026Hong Kong SAR ChinaUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)
Hong Kong police said on their CyberDefender social media page, reported on 29 July 2026, that a victim received a WhatsApp voice message from the victim's father's hijacked account asking for an urgent transfer of HK$1 million to a friend. The voice and manner of speech were very similar to the father's, and the victim made the transfer, then a further HK$2 million requested the same way, then payments to several bank accounts on different pretexts, until the savings account was empty. The victim realised the fraud only after police made contact, with a reported total loss of more than HK$10 million. Police said scammers in WhatsApp hijackings may use AI to fake the voices of people close to the victim, and outlets that published reports on 30 and 31 August 2026 of a police briefing described the case as one involving a deepfake voice message imitating the father, while one outlet said the deepfake use was suspected. No source reports analysis of the audio. The loss and the voice characterisation rest on police statements relayed by outlets, and the month of July 2026 rests on one outlet.
Core concern High reported severity
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/09/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning tool
WIRED reported on 21 May 2025 that Mark Brown, creator of the Game Maker's Toolkit YouTube channel, says another YouTube channel published a video about Doom: The Dark Ages narrated with an AI version of his voice, made without his knowledge or consent, and that a second video that appears to feature his voice is also online. Brown filed a privacy complaint with YouTube. Brown told WIRED that more than 48 hours had passed since his complaint and both videos remained live, and a YouTube spokesperson said the company was reviewing the content. Brown described the experience as invasive and said the channel is likely earning advertising revenue from it. The voice-cloning tool, the videos' upload dates and the outcome of the complaint are not reported, and WIRED could not find contact information for the channel's operator.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)
In a 4 February 2025 report by Hi-Line Today, the owner of a game and coffee store in a Havre shopping mall said an employee received a call on a personal phone that appeared to come from the employee's own number and carried what the employee described as the owner's voice. The owner said the scammers had also duplicated the owner's number. The article says the store reported that the scam compromised bank details and caused monetary losses; the owner said the employee was not blamed. The reporter describes the scam as using AI voice replication. The only support for a cloned voice is the employee's claim, relayed by the owner.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026
Event date unknownMexicoUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)
On 25 September 2026 Diego Carreto, a 26-year-old commercial announcer from León, Guanajuato, published a video saying that a promotional spot for Vendimias Guanajuato 2026, produced by a private agency and distributed by the state Secretaría de Turismo e Identidad, used his voice although he never recorded it, never worked with the agency and was never contacted. He showed segments of the spot and repeated the same lines himself. He believes his public voice demo was fed into a generative-AI system, and asked for removal of all material with his voice, payment for its use, legal action against those responsible and deletion of his biometric data. He says the spot ran nationally, and within Guanajuato on radio, on state government social media and on the Visit México platform. The secretariat said it rejects any unauthorised use of a person's voice or image, including with AI tools, and asked the producing company to clarify what happened. AI use has not been confirmed.
Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026
1 Jul 2024 to 30 Sept 2025Event location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning tool
Kenjiro Tsuda, a Japanese voice actor known for roles in Jujutsu Kaisen, sued the operator of TikTok in the Tokyo District Court in November 2025, seeking removal of videos he says use a generative-AI imitation of his voice without permission. According to his complaint, as reported by Jiji Press, Nikkei and the Asahi Shimbun, an account run by an unidentified person posted at least 188 short videos on urban legends, the occult and trivia between July 2024 and September 2025, narrated in a voice modelled on his; the account had about 210,000 followers, videos averaged 1.47 million views, and his side says the poster earned 500,000 to 750,000 yen a month from TikTok's view-based payments. TikTok's operator said the voice was a generic male voice that the poster said came from AI trained on a friend's voice. The poster deleted the account in May 2026. On 30 September 2026 the court held, as a general principle, that a person's voice is a symbol of personality like a likeness and that using a performer's voice without permission solely to exploit its power to attract customers infringes the right of publicity, the first such ruling in Japan. It dismissed the claim because the videos were already gone and TikTok's operator had no remaining duty to delete them, and it did not decide whether these videos infringed his rights (Nikkei; Asahi Shimbun; TV Asahi). His lawyer said they did not plan to appeal.
Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 7 sources, 5 underlying accounts · Added 28/09/2026
Event date unknownBrazilUnidentified voice-cloning tool
A businessman who owns a workshop in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, found a car advertised at a market price by a seller who said he was in Ponta Porã, the businessman's home town; he passed his brother's contact so the brother could inspect the car. The fraudsters then contacted him as if they were his brother, saying he had seen the car, sending a video and confirming everything was in order; believing he was speaking to his brother, he made a Pix transfer of about R$28,000, after which the contact was blocked. He told G1 MS and TV Morena that the criminals used information about his family and a cloned voice. Guided by his wife, he contested the transfer through the Central Bank's special return mechanism and, after nearly three hours, a police report and an in-person registration, recovered about 20 percent. In a second case reported alongside, a medical student's mother in Dourados received messages, a voice note and a video from someone posing as her daughter, in a cloned voice, approving payment for an HB20 she was buying in Campo Grande; the mother checked directly with her daughter and discovered the audio had been AI-generated before any money was sent. A state prosecutor said his unit had not yet catalogued identical voice-cloning cases and urged victims to file police reports; the Civil Police did not respond to G1's questions. The date of the fraud is not reported.
Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 21/09/2026
11 Aug 2026BrazilUnidentified voice-cloning tool
On Monday 10 August 2026 a digital influencer from Picos, in the centre-south of Piauí, began negotiating a car advertised online for sale in Fortaleza (Ceará), where an uncle of his lives, and asked the sellers to take the car to the uncle so he could inspect it. On Tuesday 11 August a contact using a different number but the uncle's photo sent him audio messages in a voice identical to his uncle's, generated with artificial intelligence, saying the car was in good condition and telling him to make the bank transfer. Believing he was speaking to his uncle, he transferred the money; when he then called the uncle's real number he learned he had been defrauded. The loss exceeded R$56,000, money he says he had saved for years. He registered a police report on 11 August; the Piauí property-crimes unit (Depatri) is investigating and he is seeking a refund from the banks. The account is the victim's own, reported by G1 Piauí on 13 August 2026 from his social-media posts and an interview; the police unit did not respond to G1 before publication.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 20/09/2026
19 May 2026United StatesUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)
A married couple in their sixties buying a US$460,000 condo in Hudsonville, near Grand Rapids, Michigan, received an email on 19 May 2026, days before closing, telling them to wire US$66,026.92 for the down payment and closing costs within 24 hours. The email listed a phone number differing from their loan officer's by two digits, and the husband then received a call confirming the instructions in a voice that sounded just like the loan officer. The couple borrowed from family and other sources and wired the money. The day before closing their real loan officer sent the actual statement; the closing was cancelled hours before signing and the money was gone. The husband now believes the call came from a spoofed number using AI-assisted voice cloning; Tyler Adams of CertifID, which is working with the couple and federal officials, said someone's email in the transaction was probably compromised and that the scammers likely cloned the loan officer's voice from social-media clips. The sender's address had two extra letters ('UnitedsMortgages' instead of 'UnitedMortgage'). Neither the lender nor the loan officer is accused of complicity. The couple later completed the purchase in early June from their mutual fund, reported the loss to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, and describe lasting apprehension and have discussed delaying retirement. CNN reported the case on 15 September 2026; the account the money went to has since closed.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 20/09/2026
Jul 2026GreeceUnidentified voice-cloning tool
On 18 September 2026 the Hellenic Police announced that its Organised Crime Directorate had dismantled a criminal organisation, active since at least early July 2026, whose members defrauded and robbed residents of Attica by posing on the phone as staff of the electricity distributor ΔΕΔΔΗΕ, mobile operators or fibre-optic installers. When a target hesitated, the callers asked for a relative's phone number, called that relative under a mobile-operator pretext to obtain a voice sample, cloned the voice with an AI tool and then played the cloned voice to the target to 'confirm' the instructions. Two men aged 23 and 25, described as the ring's 'collectors', were arrested in Nea Ionia just after removing valuables worth €30,000 from a victim's home; the case file, covering criminal organisation, fraud and aggravated theft with proceeds above €120,000, names four more people. Police have so far confirmed at least five further cases with the same method and estimate the group's total proceeds above €1 million. The two arrested were brought before the prosecutor and referred to an investigating judge.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 19/09/2026
1 Jul 2026 to 14 Jul 2026BrazilUnidentified video tool
On 14 July 2026 the Rio Grande do Sul Civil Police launched Operação Sophia against a group that used AI voice cloning and deepfake to turn real fundraising campaigns of children with cancer into fake donation appeals: AI-generated child voices asked for money in videos boosted by pages such as 'Clube de Doadores' and 'Unidos pelo Amor', leading donors to lookalike sites that issued Pix codes to shell companies. Sixteen people were arrested across five states. In the campaign that started the investigation — using the image of Kelen Santos's daughter, who was in cancer treatment — police traced R$294,500 diverted, and the investigation found a financial-hub company that moved more than R$1.7 million. The family had to tell congratulating donors that their money had gone to a scam.
Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 15/09/2026
27 Mar 2024IndiaUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)
Amar Ujala (Kanpur, 10 April 2024) reports that a vegetable seller received a WhatsApp call on 27 March in which a person spoke in a voice resembling his nephew's, saying he had been picked up by police on his way to Kanpur; a second caller posing as a police sub-inspector said the nephew was named in a rape-and-murder case and demanded Rs 2 lakh. The seller transferred Rs 60,000 to one bank account and then, with Rs 40,000 borrowed from nearby shopkeepers, Rs 40,000 to a second account. When a voice note demanded another Rs 1 lakh he told the shopkeepers, phoned his brother-in-law and learned the call was a fraud. Police registered a case under the IT Act citing fraud and the use of deepfake AI, and the Central zone DCP is quoted saying the case prima facie appears connected with deepfake AI and the cyber cell is investigating. No recording or forensic finding is reported, so whether the voice was AI-generated or a human impersonation is not established.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 15/09/2026
30 Jan 2024IndiaUnidentified voice-cloning tool
Hindi reporting describes a parent in Aligarh transferring INR 400,000 after callers impersonated police and used a voice presented as his son’s. Police reportedly stopped INR 86,000. The AI attribution and transfers have not been independently verified here; final net loss is unknown.
AI relation under review Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 15/09/2026