Three people have been indicted on charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for allegedly using artificial intelligence to impersonate corporate executives and lawyers in a scheme that defrauded companies of approximately $129 million, prosecutors said Thursday.
According to an indictment filed in a US District Court in New York, Jacob Soall, 41, Sharon Hazan, 54, and Guy Sheetrit, 42, targeted thousands of companies worldwide over a period of more than 18 months using AI-generated impersonations.
Their alleged victims included hospital networks in Missouri and California, a Rhode Island-based bank, a financial technology company in the United Kingdom, a Massachusetts mutual fund company and a Florida-based pet food business.
The three defendants, who have links to Spain, the United Kingdom, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, also face money laundering charges, according to court documents.
Soall and Sheetrit's lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It was not immediately clear whether Hazan had legal representation. The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The suspects were arrested between June and September. According to prosecutors, Hazan was convicted in a New York court in 2008 of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
The defendants, who reportedly used nicknames including "Rocky Balboa", "Superman Cash" and "Fat Boy", primarily targeted corporate accounting departments.
They allegedly sent emails pretending to come from company chief executives and requested assistance with confidential financial transactions. They then arranged telephone or video calls during which they used AI technology to imitate the executives' voices and, in some cases, their appearances.
Employees were subsequently instructed to contact lawyers at major law firms, whom the suspects were also prepared to impersonate, according to the indictment.
Soall primarily posed as British lawyers and reportedly used a handwritten script titled "Lawyer Call" to make himself sound like a genuine legal professional while communicating with victims.
The impersonated lawyers then instructed employees to transfer large sums of money into bank accounts in different countries. The money was subsequently converted into cryptocurrency to conceal its origins before being distributed among the defendants and other alleged participants, court documents said.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle Jr said the case demonstrated how advanced technology could be exploited to carry out large-scale financial fraud.
He said the FBI remained committed to adapting its investigative capabilities to identify and disrupt criminals using emerging technologies to target individuals and businesses.
If convicted, the defendants could face maximum sentences of 20 years for each of the charges, except aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory two-year prison term, according to the US Attorney's Office.