A woman from Arizona thought her teenage daughter had been kidnapped and was making a call to her. It was only later that Jennifer DeStefano found out that the pleading call was all a scam and the voice she heard over the phone was not that of her daughter at all. Now, she wants the world to know about the ploy which she said was not only aimed at conning her family out of money, but also at kidnapping her as well.
Arizona mom terrified AI kidnapping scam tried to lure her into being abducted as she feared for daughter https://t.co/jTLWy5sgU9
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 7, 2024
DeStefano recounted the event, saying that she panicked when she received a call from her 15-year-old daughter Brie saying she had been kidnapped. The kidnapper asked for $1 million for her return.
However while DeStafano unsuspectingly struggled with the idea of putting the money together out of fear that her daughter was really in danger, Brie herself was actually on a ski trip, unaware of the situation.
According to DeStefano, she had been targeted by an AI voice cloning scam, a type of kidnapping scam in which a person’s voice is cloned and used against their loved ones.
She said the whole phone conversation had sounded so real, as her supposed daughter was “sobbing and crying” over the phone.
The man on the phone then told her he had her daughter. Warning her against calling the police, he threatened to drug Brie, “have my way with her” and then “drop her off in Mexico.”
In the background, the voice purported to be Brie’s was going, “Help me, Mom. Please help me. Help me.”
After telling the scammer she could not afford the $1 million he initially requested, he asked her to pay $50,000. But he would not accept a wire transfer. Instead, he wanted her to meet with him in person to drop off the money.
Before she could go, however, she found that the call was a scam and that Brie was safe. Other women present with her while she was on the phone called the authorities and her husband, who told them of Brie’s actual whereabouts.
Warning of how deep and real the scam sounded, DeStefano said the voice sounded 100% like her daughters, “It was completely her voice. It was her inflection. It was the way she would have cried. I never doubted for one second it was her. That’s the freaky part that really got me to my core,” she stated.
She also voiced fear that the same scam will keep going around and others might not be so lucky. “If this has happened to you, or anyone you know, please report! The only way to stop this is with public awareness!” she warned.