Mexico busts extortion network that used AI to clone VIP voices

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) — Mexican authorities have arrested a senior former provincial official on charges of extorting judges, governors and employees of the presidency by using AI to clone their voices. The security ministry said Thursday that the former treasurer of the state of Michoacan, his wife, children, and a bodyguard, were all arrested on suspicion of running a scheme that extorted "substantial amounts of money." The ministry did not name the defendants but Mexican media identified the ex-treasurer as Luis Miranda Contreras and said he had previously been convicted of embezzlement. The authorities stated that he and his family impersonated "Supreme Court justices, governors, mayors, and public servants from the office of the president." Since 2021, the investigation said, the defendants secured "substantial amounts of money by directly contacting their victims, impersonating others, and even resorting to threats and extortion." "To strengthen the deception, they used AI to mimic the voices of the political or economic figures they were impersonating," the security ministry said. Investigators described a two-part scheme. First, someone posing as the assistant of a high-ranking official would call the victim and request their boss's personal phone number. The purported boss would call shortly afterwards. Citing "orders from on high," he or she would request either money, a government job for a relative or a business contract for an associate. Voice cloning scams have skyrocketed with the advance of AI. In the United States, for example, AI-enabled scams -- often involving someone imitating a relative of the victim -- have cost Americans some $890 million, the FBI said in a report last month.