Three charged in $129 million AI scheme impersonating CEOs and attorneys

Fake executive emails and AI voice clones steered employee payments into cryptocurrency

Three people accused of using artificial intelligence to impersonate corporate executives and attorneys have been indicted on charges they stole about $129 million from companies around the world, federal prosecutors said Thursday. Jacob Soall, 41, Sharon Hazan, 54, and Guy Sheetrit, 42, were charged with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft and were also charged with money laundering, according to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in New York.

The defendants are accused of targeting thousands of companies across the world over more than a year and a half, according to the indictment. FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle Jr. said the case shows how advanced technology can be used to commit large-scale fraud.

“As criminals continue to weaponize emerging technologies, the FBI remains committed to rapidly adapting our capabilities to identify, investigate, and disrupt those who seek to harm New Yorkers and businesses operating in our communities,” Barnacle said in a statement.

Victims identified in court documents included hospital systems in Missouri and California, a bank in Rhode Island, a financial technology company in the United Kingdom, a mutual fund company in Massachusetts and a pet food company in Florida.

The trio often targeted the companies’ accounting departments, according to court documents. The defendants would send an email purporting to be from the CEO and ask for help with a confidential financial transaction, then coordinate a phone or video call where the defendants used AI to mimic the CEO’s voice and sometimes the CEO’s image, according to the indictment.

The defendants would then tell employees to contact an attorney at a major law firm, one the group was also ready to impersonate, according to court documents. Soall mainly impersonated attorneys from the United Kingdom and had a “handwritten script titled ‘Lawyer Call’ that he utilized to make himself seem like a real attorney when speaking with and defrauding victims,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

The impersonated attorney would tell the employee to wire large payments to bank accounts across the world, court documents say. The funds were then converted into cryptocurrency in an attempt to conceal where they came from and then distributed to the trio and others involved, according to court documents.

The defendants are from Spain, the United Kingdom, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, according to the indictment. The trio has nicknames that include “Rocky Balboa,” “Superman Cash” and “Fat Boy.”

The three were arrested between June and September, prosecutors said. In 2008, Hazan was convicted in a New York court of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

If convicted, each of the charges carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, except for aggravated identity theft, which carries two years, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

The case docket, which typically lists information on defense lawyers, was still listed as sealed in online court records as of Thursday evening. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York did not immediately respond to a voicemail left by The Associated Press.