HISPI Project Cerebellum HISPI PROJECT CEREBELLUM

Reported AI-Generated Deepfake Romance Scam Allegedly Used to Steal One Bitcoin From Recently Divorced Investor

December 31, 2025

A recently divorced Bitcoin investor reported a distressing incident where an alleged AI-powered romance scam resulted in the loss of his entire retirement fund, one full Bitcoin. The perpetrator is said to have utilized AI-generated portraits and deepfake video calls to impersonate a romantic partner and trusted crypto trader, persuading the victim to participate in a 'pig-butchering' scheme that displayed falsified profits and made recovery impossible.

This incident underscores the need for responsible AI governance and harm prevention measures. JOIN US to learn more about how HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM can help establish guardrails for AI and promote safe and secure AI practices.

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Alleged deployer
unknown-scammers, unknown-pig-butchering-scammers
Alleged developer
unknown-deepfake-technology-developers, unknown-voice-cloning-technology-developers
Alleged harmed parties
investors, cryptocurrency-investors, cryptocurrency-investors-defrauded-by-ai-generated-profiles, pig-butchering-scam-victims

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1327

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.