SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Salt Lake City Police are warning of an artificial intelligence scam that is affecting residents of the Greater Salt Lake area.
They say an email from a fake SLCPD account with audio and video impersonating Chief Mike Brown has been sent to people in an attempt to scam people out of several thousand dollars.
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According to Salt Lake City Police, the video portion of the message included footage taken from an interview ABC4 had done with Chief Brown several years ago.
“The audio informed the recipient that a wire transfer made to an LLC was rejected because of a reference number missing. The message continued to claim that the recipient still owed the federal government nearly $100,000,” SLCPD said.
According to police, while the audio is a close recreation of Brown’s voice, it is not Brown. They noted several inconsistencies with the A.I. recreation.
“The email with the AI-generated message came from a Google account and had the Salt Lake City Police Department’s name in it,” police said. A phone number then followed.