In first, Hong Kong police arrest 6 over finance scams involving deepfake technology

Hong Kong police have arrested six people over the use of deepfake technology to take out loans in other people’s names.

Addressing reporters on Friday, superintendent Dicken Ko said that, with the advancement of technology, many financial companies allow people to apply for loans and bank accounts online by having them scan their identity cards and faces for verification.

In this context, police had uncovered a local fraud syndicate that used eight stolen Hong Kong identity cards – all of which had already been reported as lost – to make 90 loan applications and 54 bank account registrations between last September and July, he said.

Deepfake methods were used in at least 20 instances to imitate those pictured in the identity cards and trick facial recognition programmes, Ko added.

It marks the first time police have made arrests related to the face-swapping technology, where an image or recording is manipulated to misrepresent somebody. Last month, police warned that the public to stay vigilant to scams involving deepfakes, and that police were stepping up efforts to raise awareness about artificial intelligence-related crimes.

A smartphone. Photo: freestocks, via Unsplash.

It comes after police said they received a report from a man who said scammers attempted to trick him by swapping his face onto a pornographic video before trying to blackmail him.

Ko said on Friday that police arrested six people on Thursday, among them four men and two women aged 31 to 50. They were suspected of conspiracy to defraud.

Police also seized a stolen identity card, 13 suspected fake identity cards, the suspects’ phones and laptops, a batch of fake documents including income and proof of address evidence, as well as tools suspected to be used for making fake identity cards.

Deception cases in Hong Kong have been on the uptick in recent years. Police have set up a 24-hour “anti-scam” helpline, as well as a mobile app in which users can search phone numbers, websites and other information to see they have been connected to any fraud cases.

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