BHOPAL: In what is believed to be Madhya Pradesh’s first case of cyber fraud involving AI-driven voice modulation, a middle-aged woman who runs a small play school in Indore has lost her entire savings of Rs 97,500 after being duped by a fraudster who cloned the voice of her cousin, a Uttar Pradesh police personnel.
The victim, Smita Sinha (name changed), last spoke to her cousin, who works with the Uttar Pradesh Police emergency dial service, around two years ago.
On the night of January 6, while Smita was having dinner with her husband and teenage daughter, she received a call from an unknown number that closely resembled her cousin’s phone number. The caller confirmed that he was her cousin and sounded exactly like him.
He claimed that one of his close friends had been admitted to a prominent private hospital in Indore and urgently required life-saving cardiac surgery. The caller said he needed to transfer a large sum immediately to fund the surgery.
According to Smita, the caller told her that he was unable to credit the money directly to the hospital and was therefore transferring the amount in parts to her digital payment account. He requested her to forward the same amount to the “hospital doctor’s number”, the QR code for which he had already sent to her phone.
Notably, one of the QR codes shared was registered under the name “Hema”. A doctor with the same name is indeed employed at the private hospital where the caller claimed the surgery was scheduled, lending credibility to the story.
“As he spoke to me, I confirmed receiving message alerts showing the money had been credited to my digital payment account. My teenage daughter, who is more familiar with digital transactions, transferred a total of Rs 97,500 to the QR code in four transactions,” Smita told TNIE on Friday.
However, after the five-minute call ended, Smita checked her bank account and discovered that not a single rupee had actually been credited to her account from the number used by the caller.
Shocked by the loss, which included her savings, funds meant for teachers’ salaries, and EMI payments on a loan taken for the school, Smita contacted her cousin in Uttar Pradesh the following day. He denied having made any such call and confirmed that the number used was not his.
“The phone number from which the call, messages and QR codes were sent has remained switched off since the fraud,” Smita’s husband said.
The incident was reported to Indore’s Lasudia police station on January 7. A case has been registered against unidentified persons under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023 and the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2000. Investigations are ongoing.
According to Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime), Indore, Rajesh Dandotiya, preliminary investigations strongly suggest the use of AI-based voice modulation technology.
“This appears to be the first case of AI-driven voice cloning fraud not only in Indore but possibly in the entire state,” sources associated with the Madhya Pradesh Police cyber crime cell in Bhopal said.
“In such cases, fraudsters conduct detailed research on their targets and their close contacts. They obtain voice samples and use AI tools to replicate the voice convincingly to deceive victims,” Dandotiya added.
Smita’s husband also recalled that around three months earlier, she had received a call from an unknown number enquiring about her play school, which was abruptly disconnected when he intervened.
“One wonders whether there is any link between that call and the January 6 fraud,” he said.