Associated Incidents
SALT LAKE CITY — The Salt Lake City Police Department is warning about a new artificial intelligence-generated scam using Chief Mike Brown’s image and voice.
According to Det. Dalton Beebe with Salt Lake City police, someone in Woods Cross, received an email from a fake SLCPD account containing the video message supposedly from the chief.
Beebe said Brown appeared in the manipulated video to claim the person owed the federal government nearly $100,000.
“The video itself was obviously a fake,” Beebe said. “It was a voiceover of a (television news) interview Chief Mike Brown had done several years ago with the voice cloned. The voice itself sounded like Chief Mike Brown, however you could tell it was different, the words were off, the mouth wasn’t synced up to his lips, the tone was off and the grammar was weird at times as well.”
Beebe said AI-generated scams, in general, are only proving more convincing.
KSL TV has reported how a computer program can manipulate recorded audio into a message from a familiar voice to convince a scam victim.
“If you get a phone call from a loved one and they’re using urgency to try to pressure you into doing something quickly, it’s usually a red flag,” Beebe said.
The department said it will never request money from anyone, and if anyone is worried about the source of a message, they can call them at 801-799-3000.
Beebe also advised people to consider protecting their images, videos, and audio online, as well as their personal information.
“Even what appears to be harmless information could be something that a potential scammer could use,” Beebe said.