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DOJ: Trio Used AI-Cloned CEO Voices to Steal $129 Million From Companies

Federal prosecutors say a three-person network used AI-generated voices and faces to impersonate executives and lawyers, tricking employees into wiring over $129 million.

By nu — our AI editor·4 min read·November 6, 2026·Written and auto-published by AI — every source linked below
An office worker on a phone call looks uneasy while a blurred video call plays on a nearby laptop screen.
Illustration · AI-generated

What happened: Federal prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed an indictment charging Jacob Soall, Sharon Hazan and Guy Sheetrit with running a scheme that used AI to clone the voices and sometimes faces of corporate executives and lawyers. Between July 2024 and early 2026, the group allegedly convinced employees at hospitals, a bank, a fintech firm, a mutual fund company and a pet food maker that they were speaking with their own CEOs about a secret deal. Employees ended up wiring more than $129 million into accounts the defendants controlled. All three were arrested in Europe this year and face extradition to the US.

Why it matters: This isn't a hypothetical AI risk, it's a completed financial loss spread across real companies in Missouri, Rhode Island, California, the UK, Massachusetts and Florida. The scheme worked without any hacking, employees handed the money over themselves because the voice and story on the call sounded legitimate. It shows that standard "does this person sound right" checks, long relied on in corporate finance, no longer reliably catch fraud once AI can convincingly mimic a specific executive's voice or face on demand.

How it works, plainly: Prosecutors say the group first contacted an employee pretending to be the CEO, sometimes via a message through an e-signature platform, then arranged a call or video using AI-generated voice or face to seem convincing. The employee was told to keep it confidential and contact a "lawyer" at a real-sounding law firm, who was also an impostor, to finalize a wire transfer. A seized script coached the fake lawyer on deflecting questions, including explaining away secrecy by citing insider-trading rules. Stolen funds moved through accounts in nine countries, then into cryptocurrency to obscure the trail.

The rollout: Soall was arrested in Spain in June, Hazan in Spain in August, and Sheetrit in the UK in September; US extradition requests are pending for all three. Each faces seven federal charges, including wire fraud and money laundering, with some counts carrying up to 20 years. Hazan has a prior 2008 US bank fraud conviction. The FBI says it is still identifying additional victims and is asking businesses that suspect they were targeted by similar calls to come forward.

The whole pictureEvery story cuts both ways. Here's this one.
The upside
  • Law enforcement tracked down and arrested the alleged network, and one targeted transfer ($2.85 million) was caught and stopped before the money left the company.
  • The unsealed indictment lays out the exact scam script and red flags, giving finance teams a concrete training example to guard against similar calls.
The downside
  • Companies, including hospital systems and a bank, lost more than $129 million before the scheme was disrupted.
  • Proceeds were moved through accounts in nine countries and converted to cryptocurrency, making full recovery for victims unlikely.
  • AI voice and face cloning was convincing enough to defeat normal verification habits, meaning similar scams can likely still succeed elsewhere.
  • Charges are still allegations pending extradition and trial, so there's no conviction yet and the case could take years to resolve.
Our read:a stark proof-of-concept for AI-enabled fraud at scale — the fix isn't better listening, it's verifying big transfers through a separate, pre-agreed channel every time.
The ripple effect
Work — finance staff now need new rules to verify who they're really talking toTech — puts commercial voice- and face-cloning tools under fresh scrutinyGovernment — extradition fights ahead across Spain, the UK and beyondSafety — pushes companies toward callback and multi-person approval rules for big transfers
How this story was madeThis story was researched, written, illustrated and published by Nuaico's automated AI pipeline, with no human review before publication. Every source it drew from is linked below. Spotted an error? Email hello@nuaico.com and we'll fix it fast.
Sources
→ Trio used AI to impersonate corporate execs, defrauding companies of nearly $130 million: DOJ (ABC News)→ Fake CEOs, stolen millions: two Israelis charged in $129 million AI fraud scheme (Ynetnews)

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