17-year-old Chinese exchange student Kai Zhuang was found alive in the Utah desert shortly after his mysterious disappearance. Riverdale police are calling it a case of so-called "cyber kidnapping," a new trend in which scammers extort money from families by convincing them their relative has been kidnapped.
Zhuang himself actually stopped contacting his family on December 28th, ending his dialogue with his parents with a photograph indicating his possible abduction. The latter had to pay the attackers about 80 thousand dollars to find out about the location of their son.
At the same time, cybercriminals threatened the guy for about a month, forcing him to retire away from home and spend some time there. No one physically abducted Zhuang; he fulfilled the demands of the attackers himself. However, the accompanying threats and significant ransom money prevent the police from classifying the case as anything other than the aforementioned “cyber kidnapping.”
US law enforcement agencies have previously reported similar cases. Some of them used artificial intelligence to imitate the voice or visual image of the victim in order to play on the feelings of loved ones and extract more money from them.
According to law enforcement statistics, Americans lost about $8.8 billion to fraud in 2022. 2.6 billion of this amount comes from identity fraud.
Riverdale police advised people who believe they are being followed or threatened to contact police immediately and not to comply with the intruders.
Zhuang himself actually stopped contacting his family on December 28th, ending his dialogue with his parents with a photograph indicating his possible abduction. The latter had to pay the attackers about 80 thousand dollars to find out about the location of their son.
At the same time, cybercriminals threatened the guy for about a month, forcing him to retire away from home and spend some time there. No one physically abducted Zhuang; he fulfilled the demands of the attackers himself. However, the accompanying threats and significant ransom money prevent the police from classifying the case as anything other than the aforementioned “cyber kidnapping.”
US law enforcement agencies have previously reported similar cases. Some of them used artificial intelligence to imitate the voice or visual image of the victim in order to play on the feelings of loved ones and extract more money from them.
According to law enforcement statistics, Americans lost about $8.8 billion to fraud in 2022. 2.6 billion of this amount comes from identity fraud.
Riverdale police advised people who believe they are being followed or threatened to contact police immediately and not to comply with the intruders.
