Mom Says Scammers Used AI To Clone Daughter's Voice In $1 Million Kidnapping Scheme

Credit: Jennifer DeStefano/Facebook

One mother claims she was the target of a $1 million fraud after being convinced her daughter had been kidnapped, suggesting that AI technology may be raising the standard for phone scams.

In order to trick Jennifer DeStefano out of a $1 million ransom, she says that con artists impersonated her daughter's voice using artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

The mother from Arizona described the horrific occurrence as follows: "I never doubted for one second it was her.”

CBS

"That’s the freaky part that really got me to my core."

Brie DeStefano, DeStefano's 15-year-old daughter, received the fraudulent call while she was on a ski trip.

"I pick up the phone, and I hear my daughter’s voice, and it says, ‘Mom!’ and she’s sobbing.”

Credit: Jennifer DeStefano/Facebook

"I said, ‘What happened?’ And she said, ‘Mom, I messed up,’ and she’s sobbing and crying."

The horrified mother then said she overheard a man instructing 'Brie' to call him.

DeStefano recounted: "This man gets on the phone, and he’s like, ‘Listen here. I’ve got your daughter'.”

Briana DeStefano/Facebook

"'You call the police, you call anybody, I’m going to pop her so full of drugs. I’m going to have my way with her, and I’m going to drop her off in Mexico'."

DeStefano could hear her daughter sobbing and pleading for help in the distance.

The 'kidnapper' then demanded a $1 million ransom, but when the heartbroken mother said she lacked the money, he reduced his demand to $50,000.

Instagram/briedestefano

Thankfully, DeStefano called the police, learned that Brie was safe on her skiing trip, and was able to confirm her daughter's whereabouts.

The Scottsdale mom said: "It was completely her voice.”

"It was her inflection. It was the way she would have cried."

Instagram/briedestefano

It turns out that an artificial intelligence simulation was used to recreate her daughter's voice from a few soundbites.

Subbarao Kambhampati, an expert in AI and a computer science professor at Arizona State University, described the technology as follows: "Now there are ways in which you can do this with just three seconds of your voice. Three seconds. And with the three seconds, it can come close to how exactly you sound."

DeStefano finds this particularly upsetting because Brie hasn't expressed herself on any of her social media platforms.

Instagram/briedestefano

DeStefano said: "She has a few public interviews for sports/school that have a large sampling of her voice.”

"However, this is something to be extra concerned with kids who do have public accounts.”

Assistant special agent Dan Mayo from the FBI's Phoenix office said: "If you have it [your info] public, you’re allowing yourself to be scammed by people like this.”

"They’re going to be looking for public profiles that have as much information as possible on you, and when they get ahold of that, they’re going to dig into you."

Mayo urged family members to ask questions about their loved ones that the fraudster wouldn't know in order to detect scammers.