Key facts
- An 80-year-old woman lost £140,000 to romance scammers.
- Scammers used AI-generated deepfakes to alter their appearance in photos and video calls.
- The woman met the scammers on Facebook.
- The woman's daughter, Helen, discovered the scam when her mother accidentally sent her messages intended for the criminals.
- The bank has returned £45,000 to the woman's account.
- Police advise families to be 'curious but not confrontational' when approaching potential victims.
An 80-year-old woman was defrauded of £140,000 by romance scammers who utilized artificial intelligence to manipulate their appearance in photos and video calls, a tactic known as deepfake. The woman, who met the scammers on Facebook, initially sent £10,000 in cash hidden in a hollowed-out book to a Shanghai hospital for a supposed life-saving operation for one of the scammers. After this, further demands continued, and a new scammer emerged claiming to be kidnapped and needing a ransom.
Her daughter, Helen, became aware of the situation when her mother accidentally forwarded messages intended for the criminals to her. Helen observed her mother taking numerous private phone and video calls, which was out of character. She found the experience emotionally draining and lacked the expertise to effectively address the situation. Forensic linguist Lis Carter emphasized the importance of patience and careful communication when trying to help loved ones who believe they are in a genuine relationship, as direct intervention can be perceived as destroying their happiness.
To help her mother, Helen adopted a calm and open approach, encouraging trust. Police fraud protect officer Dale Richardson advises families to be "curious but not confrontational" and to ask questions about how the victim met the individual and what has been said. Helen managed to speak to one of the scammers via video call, where she quickly identified the deepfake due to a fuzzy image and out-of-sync audio. However, her mother did not believe her, feeling disgusted and ashamed, and asked Helen not to intervene in her relationship.
Unable to extricate her mother from the scam, Helen contacted her bank, leveraging a lasting power of attorney to implement safeguards on her mother's accounts. Jim Winters, head of economic crime at Nationwide, stated that banks can take steps to protect accounts once they identify a customer is being defrauded, even if data privacy limits what they can share. The bank has since returned £45,000 to the woman's account. Helen also replaced her mother's smartphone with a device that only supports calls and texts, as her mother continued to provide new phone numbers to the scammers despite multiple changes. Winters also recommends resetting a victim's digital footprint by changing phone numbers, email addresses, and social media accounts.