A multinational company recently lost £20 million in a highly sophisticated deepfake scam after a finance employee at its Hong Kong branch was fooled into paying out the money.
Police confirmed the incident involved a digitally recreated version of the CFO ordering money transfers in a video conference call. The employee was fooled after they were joined by what looked like other members of the team.
Senior superintendent Baron Chan Shun-ching told broadcaster RTHK: “In the multi-person video conference, it turns out that everyone he saw was fake.”
It appears the scammers used publicly available conference material from the past and then added voices using deep fake technology. They also used email and WhatsApp to lend credence to the con.
Believing everyone on the call was real the finance worker paid out $200 million Hong Kong dollars – about £20 million, said the police.
It was only six days later that the truth came out, when the finance clerk spoke to the company’s HQ.
Chan said that these sorts of crimes are getting more common and it has made six arrests in connection with such scams.
