Nov 2025 to May 2026ItalyUnidentified voice-cloning tool
The Carabinieri of the Compagnia Roma Centro announced on 3 June 2026 that they had reported 44 people to the judicial authorities as the alleged perpetrators of 39 completed or attempted phone frauds committed between November 2025 and May 2026. According to the Carabinieri account relayed by RomaToday, Fanpage, RaiNews and Il Messaggero, the fraudsters posed as bank staff or police, faked the caller number shown on the victim's phone (spoofing) and used artificial-intelligence software to clone the voices of the victims' relatives, then invented threats to savings or road accidents involving children or grandchildren so that victims made urgent bank transfers or topped up payment cards held by accomplices. The victims were mostly older residents of Rome. The Carabinieri recovered money, gold and jewellery estimated at over 900,000 euros. The outlets do not describe an individual victim, do not say how many of the 39 cases involved a cloned voice, and do not say how the investigators established that the voices were AI-generated.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/11/2026
Sept 2025IrelandUnidentified video tool
In September 2025, during the campaign for Ireland's presidential election, fake videos circulated mainly on Facebook and Instagram showing Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys endorsing a high-return investment platform called Quantum AI, presented as an RTÉ News segment. Bank of Ireland warned consumers on 11 September that the content was entirely fabricated using AI-driven voice and image cloning and that more such adverts were likely, without stating how it reached that view. A spokesman for Humphreys said the videos had been reported to Meta and called for their immediate removal, and Meta said that evening that it had taken them down. No person who lost money to these particular videos is described in the sources.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 29/10/2026
Jun 2025 to Jul 2025Event location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning tool
A State Department cable dated 3 July 2025, sent to all US embassies and consulates and reported by The Washington Post, AP and The Guardian, said an impostor posing as Secretary of State Marco Rubio had contacted at least five senior officials, including three foreign ministers and a US governor, by text, Signal and voicemail, with the aim of gaining access to information or accounts. According to AP, two senior officials and the cable described the attempts as using technology driven by artificial intelligence; the Guardian reports that the messages mimicked Rubio's voice and writing style. The department said it was investigating and advised all employees and foreign governments. One official told AP the attempts had been unsuccessful; the technical basis for the AI description was not disclosed.
Core concern Low reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 14/10/2026
Nov 2025United KingdomFameplay AI voiceover (reported)
Royal Mail's 2025 Christmas television campaign ended with a narrator speaking the slogan "Royal Mail, it's so much more than just a card". In November 2025 the daughter of the BBC narrator Paul Vaughan, who died in 2014 and was known for Horizon and the Paddington audiobooks, heard the advert on television and believed the voice was her father's; Deadline reports that she feared his voice had been recreated without permission, and she told the Daily Express that no one in the family had given permission and that she was really upset. Responding to questions from Deadline, Royal Mail admitted using AI for the voiceover; its spokesperson told The Independent and the Daily Express that the voiceover was AI-generated, created using prompts and not designed to replicate any specific individual, and that its production partners' checks found no resemblance concerns. Deadline reported that the agency subcontracted the voiceover to the Czech AI firm Fameplay, which licensed technology from ElevenLabs; Fameplay said no reference to Vaughan was used in its prompts and ElevenLabs said the narration was not a direct clone of Vaughan, while declining to say whether its model was trained on his recordings. A University of York forensic speech scientist was quoted by both outlets as finding considerable phonetic similarity between the advert voice and Vaughan's, and Deadline reported that three open-source analysis tools indicated a good chance the voices were the same speaker. Deadline reports that she complained to Royal Mail and has received no apology; ElevenLabs has added Vaughan to its list of voices that cannot be cloned on its platform.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 11/10/2026
Jan 2025Event location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning tool
Chinese outlets reported on 29 September 2026, citing the Shanghai courts, that the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court had concluded what it called Shanghai's first voice-rights case arising from AI-synthesised speech. According to the court's account, a voice actor who publishes work on an app learned from a friend in January 2025 that a company appeared to be using the voice actor's voice in an online user-acquisition promotion, judged the audio to be AI-synthesised, had it notarised and sued for 300,000 yuan. The company said the audio was generated by AI it had developed but that the training material could not be confirmed, and denied using the voice actor's voice. A forensic comparison rated about 90 percent of the measured features as fairly or highly similar. The first-instance court awarded 50,000 yuan and both sides appealed. The appeal court held that the company had put an identifiable synthetic voice to commercial use without consent, dismissed the appeals and upheld the award.
Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 05/10/2026
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