Scammers Allegedly Used AI-Generated Voice in Boone County, Missouri, Kidnapping Ransom Scam

July 17, 2026

A resident of Boone County, Missouri, received a call on July 17, 2026, that displayed the resident's daughter's name and number. The caller used an AI-generated imitation of her voice to claim she had been kidnapped at gunpoint, demanding ransom. Fortunately, authorities were able to locate the daughter safely in Jefferson City without making a payment or apprehending any suspects. This incident highlights the growing threat of AI-powered scams and the importance of vigilance in protecting oneself from such schemes. Through contributors—JOIN US—to learn more about responsible AI practices and how to stay safe online.

Alleged deployer

unidentified-perpetrators-of-boone-county-missouri-ai-voice-kidnapping-scam, scammers, synthetic-media-creators, deepfake-creators, extortionists, voice-cloning-impersonation-scammers

Alleged developer

deepfake-technology-developers, voice-cloning-technology-developers, synthetic-media-generation-technology-developers, synthetic-audio-generation-technology-developers

Alleged harmed parties

boone-county-missouri-resident-targeted-by-alleged-ai-voice-kidnapping-scam, daughter-of-boone-county-missouri-resident-targeted-by-alleged-ai-voice-kidnapping-scam, boone-county-sheriff's-office, law-enforcement, victims-of-deepfake-abuse, targets-of-scams, public-safety, epistemic-integrity, privacy, victims-of-voice-cloning-impersonation-scams, families

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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.