Kolkata: In a sharp warning against the rise of deepfake technology in financial crimes, cyber fraudsters allegedly utilised artificial intelligence (AI) voice cloning to swindle Rs 1.2 lakh from a businesswoman residing near Park Street.The victim, who runs a local florist shop, transferred the funds after receiving urgent calls mimicking the voice of an acquaintance of several years.According to police, the incident unfolded on the evening of Nov 3. The complainant received two consecutive phone calls between 6.09 pm and 6.27 pm from an unknown number. The caller, speaking in a voice identical to her long-time acquaintance, claimed that his child was hospitalised and required immediate medical treatment.To facilitate the transaction, the scammer claimed a friend would transfer money into her account via UPI, which she was first expected to forward to a designated account, citing network issues on the sender’s end.Shortly after, the scammer forwarded fabricated digital receipts over WhatsApp, displaying fake UPI transfer confirmations totalling Rs 1.2 lakh across two transactions—one of Rs 28,000 and another of Rs 95,000. Believing the voice on the line and trusting the visual proof provided, the shop owner transferred the full sum in two separate instalments to the specified account details.The deception came to light only after the victim checked her bank statements and discovered that no incoming funds had actually been credited to her account. Upon contacting her staffers directly, she realised she had fallen prey to a sophisticated cyber fraud racket.Following the victim’s complaint, officers at Shakespeare Sarani Police Station registered a formal case under relevant sections of the BNS and the Information Technology Act. Investigators are currently probing the transaction trails to trace the recipient bank accounts and track the origin of the phone calls.Preliminary findings by cyber investigators suggest that criminals likely scraped audio samples of the employee to train AI-driven voice cloning software, enabling them to replicate his tone, cadence, and speech patterns in real time to exploit the employer’s trust. However, cops are not ruling out the involvement of the main acquaintance in this case till now. While officers are interrogating the actual employee as a matter of standard procedure to rule out internal involvement, senior cops said that the deliberate imitation of the acquaintance’s voice via deepfake technology appears to be the primary modus operandi behind the heist.Kolkata Police’s Cyber Crime Wing has issued a public alert urging citizens to independently verify any unexpected money transfer requests—especially those involving urgent medical emergencies or forwarded digital payment screenshots—by calling back known individuals on their registered primary phone numbers before initiating any financial transaction.
