Louisiana Police Officer Warning of Deep Fake Facebook AI Scam

A Louisiana police officer is warning the public to be extra vigilant after he received a video on Facebook Messenger from his brother-in-law asking him for $250. The video was a deep fake AI scam.

Facebook Deep Fake AI Scam

Sergeant Vernon O’Quinn with the Fenton Police Department is warning the public to stay extra vigilant when it comes to Facebook scams.

O'Quinn almost got scammed out of $250 after he received a video from his brother-in-law via Facebook Messenger asking him for the money because he was in trouble.

The scary thing is, it wasn't O'Quinn's brother-in-law in the video, and his brother-in-law never sent the message.

The video was a deep fake scam in which scammers used AI to recreate O'Quinn's brother-in-law's likeness and voice.

O'Quinn tells KLFY -

"It wasn’t a long video but a short video of him. And the message on that video was ‘Hey look I need $250. I’m going to send you a cash app, can you send it to me? I’ll explain everything later but I’m in pretty big trouble' and the phone disconnected."

After the video played O'Quinn says the video disappeared, but a link to the cash app remained in his messages.

O'Quinn then called his brother-in-law to make sure it wasn't actually him in the video and, it sure wasn't. His brother-in-law was fine and in no trouble.

O'Quinn tells KLFY "You know social media is an open door for them to collect all of your personal information. They’ll generate a picture, they’ll generate a voice because you have videos on your Facebook."

Remember to never send anyone money online until you've been able to verify 100% it's actually them who contacted you.

Read more at KLFY.