‘Rocky Balboa,’ ‘Superman Cash’ And ‘Fat Boy’ Allegedly Hit Hospitals, Bank In $129 Million AI Con

A team of foreign national fraudsters allegedly used artificial intelligence to impersonate executives and swindle companies out of millions of dollars.

Jacob Soall, Sharon Hazan and Guy Sheetrit were charged with wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering after they seemingly set their sights on thousands of companies and tricked employees into wiring money to the group’s bank accounts, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced in a Thursday press release. The individuals allegedly took at least $129 million from companies in the U.S. and abroad, as concerns grow over the cybersecurity risks of AI.

“As alleged, Jacob Soall, Sharon Hazan, and Guy Sheetrit abused groundbreaking super intelligence technology to impersonate real people and deceive corporate executives into sending them and their co-conspirators approximately $129 million,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said in the press release. “I encourage individuals and the business community to consider how to best protect themselves from the emerging threat of SI [super intelligence]-enabled crime.”

Hazan and Sheetrit are Israeli nationals, according to the DOJ. Soall lives in Spain and the United Kingdom and Sheetrit also lives in the United Arab Emirates.

Soall, Hazan and Sheetrit allegedly stole nearly $4.9 million from a Missouri hospital system, approximately $2.7 million from a Rhode Island bank, nearly $3 million from a California hospital system, more than $5.2 million from a Florida pet food company, and more than $4.6 million from a Massachusetts mutual fund company, the press release stated. The trio also took more than $11.5 million from a United Kingdom tech company.

Soall went by the pseudonyms “Rocky Balboa” and “Seba Clarke,” and Hazan used nicknames “Superman Cash,” “Impossible Mission,” “Fat Boy,” and “Ron,” the indictment against the individuals alleged.

“This Office and our law enforcement partners will do our part and continue to identify, investigate, and prosecute criminals, including those who use new technologies to defraud Americans,” McDonald added.

The trio of alleged fraudsters and their unnamed team of co-conspirators manipulated AI to imitate the likeness of the companies’ CEOs and lawyers over phone and video calls, according to the press release. While posing as a CEO or lawyer, the individuals would follow a script to convince employees to assist with wire transactions to the bank accounts linked to the trio.

“We’ve reached a point where seeing someone on a video call or hearing their voice is no longer reliable proof that you’re actually speaking to that person,” Emmanuelle Saliba, chief investigations officer at GetReal Security, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “With a relatively small amount of publicly available audio or video, attackers can clone a voice or impersonate someone’s appearance in real time.”