HISPI Project Cerebellum HISPI PROJECT CEREBELLUM

Yahoo Boys Allegedly Using AI-Generated News Videos to Blackmail Sextortion Victims

January 27, 2025

Scammers, allegedly linked to the Yahoo Boys, are employing AI-generated news videos in sextortion schemes. These fabricated reports, impersonating credible news organizations, accuse victims of crimes, such as explicit content distribution. Tutorials for creating these clips have been found on Telegram, with scammers using them to coerce victims into payment. This incident underscores the need for safe and secure AI practices. For those interested in shaping trustworthy AI governance, join us at HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM (Govern) to help establish guardrails and prevent harm.

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Alleged deployer
yahoo-boys, scammers-from-west-africa, scammers-from-nigeria, scammers-from-ghana, brouteurs
Alleged developer
unknown-deepfake-technology-developers
Alleged harmed parties
unnamed-victims-in-sextortion-schemes, teenagers-targeted-in-sextortion-scams, news-organizations-impersonated-by-scammers, cnn

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/913

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.