The kidnapper demanded $1 million
A woman from Arizona claims that con artists used Artificial Intelligence to clone the voice of her daughter in a $1 million kidnapping scam. The woman, Jennifer DeStefano told Good Morning America that her 15-year-old daughter Briana was on a ski vacation when she got a call from an unknown number.
After picking up, Ms DeStefano said she heard, "my daughter's voice crying and sobbing, saying, 'Mom.' And I'm like, 'OK, what happened?' She's like, 'Mom, these bad men have me. Help me, help me.' "
She told NBC that then a man got on the phone. She said, "This man gets on the phone and he's like, 'Listen here. I've got your daughter. This is how it's going to go down. You call the police, you call anybody, I'm going to pop her so full of drugs. I'm going to have my way with her and I'm going to drop her off in Mexico,'" Ms DeStefano said. "And at that moment, I just started shaking. In the background, she's going, 'Help me, Mom. Please help me. Help me,' and bawling."
The kidnapper demanded $1 million, but he then lowered it to $50,000 after the mother told him that she didn't have it, while she was at a dance studio with another daughter. Meanwhile, a mom called the police and another called Ms DeStefano's husband. They made sure that Briana was alright.
She hung up the phone and told NBC 15 that she truly believed it was her daughter on the phone, instead of an artificial intelligence (AI) platform.
"It was completely her voice. It was her inflection. It was the way she would have cried," said DeStefano. "I never doubted for one second it was her. That's the freaky part that really got me to my core."
Police have now launched an investigation into the matter. However, the scammers are yet to be identified and apprehended.