Scammers used deepfakes to fool an employee in the Hong Kong office of a major international company earlier this year, costing the company $25 million.
News of the scam was first reported in February, but the company involved was not named.
However, on Friday the Financial Times reported that Arup, the engineering firm behind buildings including the Sydney Opera House and Apple’s California headquarters, had fallen victim to the scam.
Last January, a financial department employee in the company’s Hong Kong office participated in a video call with what he thought was the company’s chief financial officer and other staff.
But everyone else in the call was actually an AI-generated deepfake made from publicly available video and audio recordings, Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK reported, citing police.
Acting Chief Superintendent Baron Chan told RTHK that during the video call, the employee was instructed to transfer 200 million Hong Kong dollars ($25.6 million), divided into 15 transactions , to five local bank accounts.
After about a week, the employee realized it was a scam when he contacted the company headquarters.
The investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made so far, the Financial Times reported.
Arup did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, but told the FT in a statement that it had “informed police of a fraud incident in Hong Kong”, adding that the incident involved ” false voices and images.
“Our financial stability and business operations have not been affected and none of our internal systems have been compromised,” Arup said.
Deepfakes are becoming more prevalent as advances in AI open new avenues for bad actors to target businesses and individuals.
Hong Kong authorities have also warned people about a deepfake scam involving Elon Musk, in which fraudsters use the billionaire’s image to trick people into investing in his crypto software.
This isn’t the only time scammers have used deepfakes of the Tesla CEO to steal money. Earlier this year, a woman in South Korea said scammers used a deepfake of Musk to trick her into handing over $50,000, which she claimed would be invested in her name. She even had a video call with someone she thought was Musk, during which he expressed his love for her.
Deepfakes have also been used in romance scams, which use fake online personas to gain their victim’s trust before tricking them into handing over money.
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