A Hong Kong multinational company was defrauded of HK$200 million in a deepfake scam featuring fake videos of senior officers.

Scammers used sophisticated AI tools to create realistic videos and audio, leading to 15 fraudulent money transfers to five different bank accounts.

This incident marks the first major case in Hong Kong where deepfake technology mimicked a multi-person video conference to execute a financial scam.

The Hong Kong Police are actively investigating the scam and have issued guidance on verifying identities in video calls to prevent future incidents.

In response to the growing threat, the police are also improving their alert system to flag transactions associated with known scams.

The FBI has warned of a broader risk to the global economy as sextortionists begin to leverage explicit deepfakes in their schemes.

Hong Kong authorities have made arrests for identity theft involving AI-generated deepfakes, indicating a rise in similar sophisticated scams.

The article notes efforts to combat deepfake fraud, such as McAfee's Project Mockingbird, which targets AI voice cloning scams.