Description: An alleged online romance scam exploiting AI-assisted impersonation defrauded a woman, "Lea," of NZ$375,000 over two years. The scammer used AI-generated voice messages and deceptive text communication to pose as New Zealand actor Martin Henderson and built up a relationship beginning in early 2023. The victim, believing the scam was real, reportedly relocated to New Zealand in December 2024, only discovering the fraud in February 2025.
Editor Notes: While this particular incident is reported to have taken place from early 2023 to February 1, 2025, Martin Henderson had previously warned about similar scams. On July 25, 2022, he posted on Instagram about fraudulent accounts impersonating him to deceive followers: https://www.instagram.com/p/CgdL6jMpgFE/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown voice cloning technology developer , Unknown large language model developer and Unknown deepfake technology developer developed an AI system deployed by Unknown scammer impersonating Martin Henderson and Unknown scammer, which harmed Martin Henderson and Lea (pseudonym).
Alleged implicated AI systems: Unknown voice cloning technology , Unknown large language model and Unknown deepfake app
Incident Stats
Incident ID
938
Report Count
3
Incident Date
2025-02-01
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
nzherald.co.nz · 2025
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- View the report at the Internet Archive
- An American woman is distraught after finding her two-year relationship with someone claiming to be Kiwi actor Martin Henderson was fake
- She says she shared intimate details and took out more than $375,000 in loans to pay for a private jet…
bitdefender.com · 2025
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- View the report at the Internet Archive
This month, we've focused on the devastating reality of romance scams, and how much damage they can inflict, both financially and emotionally.
In a story that mirrors the pervasive nature of romance fraud, an American woman known as Lea los…
nzherald.co.nz · 2025
- View the original report at its source
- View the report at the Internet Archive
- Kiwi actor Martin Henderson has issued a heartfelt message to the victim of a romance scam using his name and image.
- The American woman lost $375,000 to someone pretending to be him.
- Henderson took a break from filming hit TV series My Lif…
Variants
A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
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