How did scammers manage to get $80,000 literally from scratch?
17-year-old Chinese exchange student Kai Zhuang was found alive in the Utah desert shortly after his mysterious disappearance. Riverdale police are calling this a case of so — called "cyber-theft" - a new trend in which scammers extort money from families by convincing them that their relative has been abducted.
Zhuang himself actually stopped contacting his family on December 28, ending his conversation with his parents with a photo indicating that he might have been abducted. 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 far from home and spend some time there. No one physically abducted Zhuang, he fulfilled the requirements of the intruders himself. However, the accompanying threats and the considerable amount of cash ransom does not allow the police to classify the case as anything other than the aforementioned "cyber theft".
U.S. 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 get more money from them.
According to law enforcement statistics, Americans have already lost about $ 8.8 billion on fraud in 2022. 2.6 billion of this amount is accounted for by fraud with forgery of identity.
Riverdale police recommended that people who believe that they are being watched or threatened, immediately contact the police and in any case do not follow the lead of intruders.
17-year-old Chinese exchange student Kai Zhuang was found alive in the Utah desert shortly after his mysterious disappearance. Riverdale police are calling this a case of so — called "cyber-theft" - a new trend in which scammers extort money from families by convincing them that their relative has been abducted.
Zhuang himself actually stopped contacting his family on December 28, ending his conversation with his parents with a photo indicating that he might have been abducted. 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 far from home and spend some time there. No one physically abducted Zhuang, he fulfilled the requirements of the intruders himself. However, the accompanying threats and the considerable amount of cash ransom does not allow the police to classify the case as anything other than the aforementioned "cyber theft".
U.S. 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 get more money from them.
According to law enforcement statistics, Americans have already lost about $ 8.8 billion on fraud in 2022. 2.6 billion of this amount is accounted for by fraud with forgery of identity.
Riverdale police recommended that people who believe that they are being watched or threatened, immediately contact the police and in any case do not follow the lead of intruders.
