Thai beauty queen loses 4 million baht after falling for AI-assisted scam
A Thai-British beauty queen lost 4 million baht (P6.8 million) after she was victimized by two men who operated an AI-assisted scam call center.
In a report by the South China Morning Post, Charlotte Austin became one of the latest victims of a suspected 50-member gang operating from a building in Poipet, a city in northern Cambodia near the Thai border.
The men who targeted her, identified as 31-year-old Ramil Pantawong and 28-year-old Thanawut Kanyaphanthe, have now been apprehended by authorities and put behind bars.
Austin said that she had received a call from someone who said that they were a member of the Department of Special Investigation, where they accused her of being involved in a money laundering scheme and instructed her to send 4 million baht so that her innocence could be proven.
After she complied, she never got her money back.
The two suspects who were caught told police that they were recruited on social media to become administrators of a gambling website. However, when they arrived, the gang took their phones and passports away and forced them to work for the call center scam instead.
Kanyaphanthe said they were threatened with physical violence if they refused to play the part, but were nevertheless compensated with the money got from successful scams.
He was later able to escape the gang after being diagnosed with a heart problem. He returned to Bangkok where he was subsequently arrested.
According to Police Lieutenant General Jiraphop Bhuridej, at least 163 people fell victim to the group's scam, which involved Pantawong and Kanyaphanthe impersonating Thai officers to trick them into transferring large sums of money.
The scammers used AI technology to alter their faces when they communicated with the victims through video calls.
They also pretended to be investigators of narcotics and money-laundering cases and would trick victims into transferring their funds for supposed verification using scripts given to them by Chinese gang leaders.
The Philippines has also seen incidents of scammers using AI technology to assist in their schemes. Around 100 suspects were recently arrested after the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) conducted a raid on a condominium building in Makati that is believed to have been turned into a "love scam" facility.
NBI Director Jaime Santiago, who led the raid, said that the scammers were using artificial intelligence (AI) tools for their online love scams. Specifically, they were using the system to generate conversations and fake profile pictures of attractive women to trick victims into investing in phony cryptocurrency schemes.
Based on data gathered by the Department of Justice, there have been more than 100 Filipinos who fell victim to love scams.
