Yahoo Boys and Scammers from Morocco Allegedly Target U.S. Widows and Vulnerable Individuals with 'Artificial Patriot' Scams
November 21, 2024
Yahoo Boys (from Nigeria and Ghana) and scammers from Morocco are reportedly targeting U.S. widows and vulnerable individuals using AI-generated images and fake military profiles in "Artificial Patriot" scams. They have allegedly impersonated military officials such as General Matthew W. McFarlane to gain trust, sharing fabricated backstories and emotional appeals. Once trust is established, they request money through untraceable methods.
- Alleged deployer
- yahoo-boys, scammers-from-west-africa, scammers-from-nigeria, scammers-from-morocco, scammers-from-ghana, brouteurs
- Alleged developer
- unknown-deepfake-technology-developers, unknown-voice-cloning-technology-developers
- Alleged harmed parties
- widows, matthew-w.-mcfarlane, impersonated-american-military-officials, emotionally-vulnerable-individuals, american-widows, epistemic-integrity, truth, national-security-and-intelligence-stakeholders
Source
Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/912
Data source
Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).
When citing the database as a whole, please use:
McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.
Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide
We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.