Yahoo Boys and Scammers from Morocco Allegedly Target U.S. Widows and Vulnerable Individuals with 'Artificial Patriot' Scams

November 21, 2024

Cybercriminals from Nigeria, Ghana, and Morocco are exploiting AI technologies to impersonate military officials like General Matthew W. McFarlane, creating deepfakes and fabricated backstories in the 'Artificial Patriot' scam. These scammers target U.S. widows and vulnerable individuals, establishing trust before requesting money through untraceable methods. This underscores the need for responsible AI governance and harm prevention mechanisms. To learn more about how Project Cerebellum is mapping, measuring, and managing such incidents, visit JOIN US.

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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.