KOZHIKODE: Fraudsters, who were till now duping people by creating fake profiles on social media, have upped their game. Now, scams that use deepfake technology — where a person's likeness is recreated using artificial intelligence (AI) — have hit Kerala shores.
In what could be a first crime of its kind in the state, a 68-year-old retired Union government employee from Kozhikode lost Rs 40,000 soon after receiving a video call from a person claiming to be his former senior colleague and seeking money for an emergency.
As it turned out, a scammer had used deep fake tech to convince the victim that it was a “genuine” call.
However, thanks to the quick action taken by the Kerala Cyber Police, the money that the elderly lost on July 9 was traced and the perpetrator’s account was blocked.
P S Radhakrishnan, a resident of Chalapuram in Kozhikode, who retired from Coal India Ltd, had received a phone call from a person claiming to be his former senior colleague from Andhra Pradesh. Later, Radhakrishnan received several calls from an unidentified number at night, but he did not pick them up.
“When I turned on the internet connection on my phone later, I received several messages on WhatsApp from the same number. The display picture was of my former colleague. I then got a video call from the same number and the person on the other side looked like my ex-colleague. However, the video call was brief,” said Radhakrishnan.
Money traced to Maha bank, account frozen
“Soon, I received a voice call on WhatsApp from the same number. The person enquired about my family members. I did not feel any suspicion. He then sought money urgently for the surgery of a relative at a hospital in Mumbai,” Radhakrishnan said. Not suspecting anything, Radhakrishnan sent the Rs 40,000 sought by the person via GooglePay.
However, the scammer called again seeking another Rs 30,000. That’s when Radhakrishnan felt something was not right. When he dialled his colleague’s old number, he realised he had been duped. The elderly filed a complaint with the Cyber Police after learning that his other friends had also received messages from the same person seeking money.
The police suspect the scammers are using deep fake tech to fake people’s faces and voices. “In this case, fraudsters used the picture of the complainant’s superior as the WhatsApp display picture. It may have been created using AI,” said Dinesh Koroth, SHO of the Cyber Crime police station in Kozhikode.
On Sunday, SP (Cyber Operations) Harishankar said the cyber wing of the Kerala Police has traced the Rs 40,000 that Radhakrishnan lost to an account in Maharashtra’s Ratnakar Bank and that the account was frozen on the police’s request. The process to recover the lost money has been initiated, and the Kozhikode Cyber Crime Police have strengthened the probe to find the accused, police officials said.
How does it work?
A deepfake tech is a form of AI that creates realistic but fake videos. Experts said fraudsters collect visual and audio data of targets from their or their friends’ social media accounts. They manipulate the video and image to make it appear as that of a real person.