A South Korean woman was scammed out of 500 million won ($350K USD) by someone using deepfakes to impersonate Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae.
AI is becoming more advanced every single day, with updates to Sora and Gemini producing increasingly realistic images and videos that have already fooled social media many times over.
Now, a scammer has successfully used a deepfake of a major South Korean celebrity to swindle a middle-aged woman out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in a high-tech romance scam.
You might recognize Lee Jung-jae from his starring role in Squid Game as Seong Gi-hun. While he was already a big star in Korea, the Netflix show catapulted him to fame on an international scale.
With his growing celebrity status in mind, a scammer created AI-generated images of the acclaimed actor with the intent of tricking victims into wiring them money.
Scammers used AI to impersonate Squid Game star
Korean news outlets reported the crime in mid-October, revealing that a ring of ‘romance scammers’ were making the rounds attempting to extort money from unwitting victims by posing as Lee.
One of these victims was a woman in her 50’s, referred to as A, who sent the scammers around 500 million won — or $350,000 USD — over the course of six months, under the impression that she was actually wiring the funds to the Squid Game star.
Reports state that the scammers sent AI-generated images of the actor, along with a phony driver’s license, to make the scam seem real, even addressing the woman with pet names like ‘honey’ or ‘sweetie.’
They conned the woman into believing that she’d sparked a romantic relationship with Lee, promising to meet her in person.
Of course, this has since been proven to be a ‘romance scam,’ a kind of online fraud scheme where criminals will strike up a romance with someone under false pretenses with the hope of siphoning money from them.
The South Gyeongsang Provincial Police Agency is currently investigating the incident, which includes possible ties to a group in Cambodia.
Lee’s agency has since responded to the ordeal, confirming that the Netflix star had nothing whatsoever to do with A or the romance scam.
“A recent crime has occurred in which individuals impersonated our artist to demand money and obtain financial gain. We make it clear that neither the company nor any of our artists ever request money, bank transfers or financial support under any circumstances,” they said, as reported by the Korea Times.
“If you are contacted with such requests, please do not respond and take extra caution to avoid becoming a victim of fraud. We are currently cooperating with authorities to verify the facts and will take firm action to protect the safety of our artist and fans.”
This isn’t the first time someone has been conned out of their cash by a fraudster pretending to be a high-profile celebrity; in 2023, a woman was catfished by someone pretending to be Stranger Things star Dacre Montgomery, known for playing Billy in the Netflix series.
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