- A Nigerian online criminal group known as “Yahoo Boys'' is using AI to commit romance scams.
- According to the FTC, romance scams cost Americans $1.3 billion in 2022.
- One easy way to spot a deepfake is to do a reverse image search.
Does he seem like too good a person to be true? Maybe it's because he's a love scammer called a “Yahoo Boy” who is trying to steal your life's savings.
According to the Department of Justice, Yahoo Boys is a Nigeria-based online criminal group that creates false online personas and uses them to target victims. Once the scammer has gained the victim's trust, the scammer will then ask for money, such as needing to pay for an emergency medical treatment.
The FBI's Internet Crime Report estimates that Americans lost more than $650 million to romance scams last year alone. Casting a wider net, the Federal Trade Commission reported that these scams netted her a whopping $1.3 billion in 2022. Many of the victims are elderly, and their savings, family inheritances, and retirement funds are targeted.
Kate Kleinert, a 69-year-old widow, previously told BI she lost $39,000 to an online romance scam. By the end, she said, Kleinert had lost most of her savings, her late husband's life insurance, her pension and her income from Social Security.
“Losing the money was a shock. But losing the love and family that we had? That's what devastated me,” Kleinert told BI.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, scams are becoming more sophisticated with modern technology. Yahoo Boys is now using AI to create deepfakes to fool even the most wary of internet users. According to Wired, Yahoo Boys began experimenting with deepfake video clips and video calls over the past two years.
“Deepfakes” utilize AI to replace a person’s likeness in a video or audio clip. David Maimon, a Georgia State University professor and director of fraud insights Sentilink, told Wired that scammers using deepfakes often set up calls via Zoom. They use a webcam combined with software that changes facial features.
In February, a Hong Kong-based financial employee handed over $25 million to a fraudster who used deepfakes to impersonate a chief financial officer, according to CNN.
In February, a Salt Lake City jury indicted seven members of the Nigerian group. Prosecutors have accused the pair of using money transfer companies to help launder money from overseas romance schemes, according to the Justice Department.
The Utah scam lasted from March 2018 to June 2019 and cost victims more than $8 million, according to police.
Trina Higgins, the U.S. attorney for Utah, said in a public service announcement that victims lost more than $3.6 million to romance scams in the state in 2022. Ms Higgins advised those looking for her girlfriend online to be careful about what she posts on social media. Ask lots of questions about the person you meet and research the person you want to have a romantic relationship with.
Above all, the U.S. Attorney's Office warns, “Never send money to anyone you have never met in person.”
One easy way to spot a deepfake is to perform a reverse image search to see the image's true source.
