Description: In February 2025, a Colorado woman was scammed by a voice-cloning fraud in which criminals used what sounded like her daughter’s voice to stage a fake kidnapping. Under duress and believing her daughter was in danger, she wired $2,000 to Mexico. The scammers exploited generative AI to simulate the daughter’s voice and manipulated the victim psychologically. Law enforcement could not trace the perpetrators or recover the funds.
Editor Notes: Incident date note: Reporting states that the scam occurred on "a Monday evening in February [2025]"; the incident date of 02/10/2025 is a placeholder until the more precise date might be ascertained.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown voice cloning technology developer developed an AI system deployed by scammers , Fraudsters , Unknown scammers operating in Mexico and Unknown scammers impersonating daughter of Linda Roan, which harmed Linda Roan , Daughter of Linda Roan and General public.
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1008
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2025-02-10
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
Linda Roan was making herself a bowl of soup on a Monday evening in February when her cellphone rang. The call was from a local number, so she answered.
"Mom, I'm OK, but something awful has happened," a young woman sobbed. "I need your he…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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