Deepfake ring in Hong Kong busted for US$4.37M in romance investment scams

Deepfakes are expected to make mainstream headlines in 2025, as deepfake detection and AI-based fraud prevention firms line up to tackle challenges ranging from financial losses to the integrity of news and media. Pindrop, which discovered the Joe Biden robocalls of 2023, says deepfakes will continue to rise at an alarming rate. In response, says Steven Smith, head of protocol at Tools For Humanity, 2025 must be the year of anti-deepfake regulation.

In the meantime, police procedural shows may soon replace the ubiquitous drug cartel with a different kind of racket – the deepfake scam romance ring.

The South China Morning Post reports that Hong Kong police have arrested 31 people from a crime syndicate running deepfake romance and investment scams in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.

Criminal proceeds from the fraud ring, which was operating out of offices in an industrial area of Kowloon Bay, exceeded HK$34 million (US$4.37 million).

According to SCMP, the swindles involved “approaching victims with deepfaked images of good-looking women they found online.”

Scammers would use generative AI to combine a selection of photos, downloaded from social media without the users’ consent, into composite avatars to be used for dating app profiles and videos. Models may also have been used for source images.

A fake online persona developed around the deepfake would typically showcase a single woman with a wealthy lifestyle, engaged in discussions about golf, expensive wine, travel and other luxuries.

‘Hey sweetie, do you like Merlot? How about giving me 150K in crypto?’

While victims saw beautiful women who were interested in them, recruits controlling the deepfake accounts would lure them into investing in sham virtual assets that transferred money to overseas accounts.

Senior Michelle Inspector Fong Sze-wing of the commercial crime bureau says “syndicate members would teach new recruits how to approach victims and converse with them, such as getting to know the victim’s occupation, education level, financial goals and cryptocurrency investments.”

Specific conversational prompts for the romance scams were designed to showcase an interest in high-end hobbies and goods. One prompt encouraged scammers to say, “I didn’t know anything about wine tasting before. But now as I spend more time with crypto bosses, I’ve slowly learned a bit of the basics, ha ha.”

Those arrested range in age from 20 to 34. Some were students seeking fast money.

“New recruits would be trained to use different dating apps to fish for targets, who would usually be based in Taiwan or [Southeast] Asia, such as in Singapore and Malaysia,” says HK Police Superintendent Charles Fung Pui-kei.

All in all, the arrests point to a complex, carefully targeted approach to deepfake romance fraud that exploits victims’ social and financial insecurity through promises of emotional connection. A manual lays out the proscribed timeline of seduction and theft:

“The first conversation: getting to know you. The second conversation: let them know what you do for a living. The third conversation: let them know you are of value to them. The fourth conversation: imbue investment concepts. The fifth conversation: close the deal.”

Fraudsters prey on widespread loneliness to feed material appetites

The discovery is of particular alarm in that it marks the second bust of a local syndicate using deepfake technology in under three months. In October 2024, police arrested 27 people for “attempting to lure men into investing in sham cryptocurrency platforms by using deepfake technology to impersonate attractive women.”

The proliferation of deepfake scams is typically framed as a strictly technological issue. But the rise of deepfake romance fraud points to what scientists have called a global loneliness epidemic as a potential security vulnerability.

The scammers’ basic motivation – greed – is also worth noting: post-it notes and other notebooks found in the two Kowloon offices laid out personal goals such as garnering millions of Hong Kong dollars or buying expensive cars and watches.

That said, the overall rate of increase of deepfake scams in Hong Kong slowed in 2024.

Article Topics

biometric liveness detection  |  biometrics  |  deepfake detection  |  deepfakes  |  financial crime  |  fraud prevention  |  generative AI  |  Hong Kong