Scammed by AI-generated fake girlfriend, Chinese man loses €26,000

Love is blind? Especially when it is generated by AI. In Shanghai, China, a man lost more than 26,000 euros after being scammed by a fake girlfriend generated by artificial intelligence, according to Chinese state media CCTV. The victim transferred nearly 200,000 yuan (about 26,250 euros) to what he thought was his girlfriend's bank account. According to the Chinese channel, the victim has "never met in person" his supposed girlfriend.

The criminals, who used generative AI software to create the fake videos and photos, convinced the man that she needed funds to start a business and help a relative pay medical bills. They even created fake medical reports and a fictitious ID card to lend credibility to their scheme. A video released by CCTV shows photos of a woman in different situations, posing with a paint palette or on a city street.

This case is reminiscent of that of Anne, scammed by a fake Brad Pitt, revealed by the TF1 show "Sept à huit". The fifty-year-old had lost 830,000 euros, after being contacted by an Instagram account presenting itself as the American star. For a year and a half, the scammers generated "deepfakes" using AI to pretend to be Brad Pitt and ask the woman for increasingly large sums of money. After divorcing her husband and transferring almost all of her compensatory allowance, she sold her house and furniture.

After finally filing a complaint, she attempted suicide three times and was hospitalized at her request in a specialized clinic for severe depression. After the investigation opened by the financial brigade on January 16, the "grazers" , these scammers located in West Africa, were identified according to the victim's lawyer. Since the creation of social networks, these criminals have been posing as celebrities and playing with the feelings of their victims. The emergence of AI capable of generating convincing images, videos and texts gives rise to increasingly sophisticated scams.