"I kidnapped a kid". He threatened me with a deep fake.Evolving 'Phishing Crimes'

[Anchor]
While deepfakes, including illegal synthetic sex crime videos, are being exploited for various crimes, a suspected Chinese criminal organization has been caught threatening to kidnap children after synthesizing them and demanding money.

The 'voice phishing' crime is evolving with artificial intelligence technology, and attention seems to be needed.

Reporter Yuh-hyun reports.

[Reporter]
In May, men, including Seoul National University graduates, made a big shock by synthesizing photos of acquaintances with pornography and distributing them.

Recently, however, a criminal organization believed to be based in China threatened parents by using pictures of their children synthesized with deepfakes.

It was last month that a Chinese couple A received threats that their daughter, who was traveling to Korea, was suddenly kidnapped.

The criminal sent a video of his daughter crying while being confined in the room and asking for 800 million won in our money.Mr.

A and his wife immediately reported to the Korean police through the consulate.

When the police urgently checked, the child was fortunately not kidnapped and was safely spending the rest of the trip.

Police believe that a presumptive Chinese criminal organization tried to extort money by synthesizing children's faces with artificial intelligence and making a "deepfake" video as if it were real.

Fortunately, it did not lead to direct damage, but our police were also on alert to see if similar crimes using deepfakes would occur in Korea.

This is because the damage can be greater if it is a deepfake that looks like a real thing, rather than a telephone financial scam that simply impersonates the prosecution or police with a "voice."

The police, looking for countermeasures against the evolving "voice phishing" crime, avoided posting on social media with public settings that can be seen by an unspecified number of people, and asked them to report the damage immediately.

I'm YTN's YOSHIHYUN.

Edit
video: Lee Ju-yeon
Design: Ji Kyung-yoon