{
 "id": "AIR-2026-0422",
 "slug": "scammers-use-ai-deepfakes-of-church-leaders-to-solicit-fraud",
 "title": "Scammers Use AI Deepfakes of Church Leaders to Solicit Fraudulent Donations",
 "summary": "Scammers distributed synthetic video and cloned audio impersonating prominent religious leaders across social media and messaging platforms. The fraudulent posts solicited financial donations and spread unauthorized messages to unsuspecting community members.",
 "type": "ai_enabled_attack",
 "categories": [
  "deepfake_fraud",
  "ai_phishing_social_engineering"
 ],
 "severity": 3,
 "targets": [
  "individual_victims"
 ],
 "products": [],
 "incident_date": "2026-01-05",
 "incident_date_precision": "day",
 "first_reported": "2026-01-05",
 "sources": [
  {
   "url": "https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1355",
   "publisher": "AI Incident Database",
   "title": "Reported AI Impersonations of Pastors Used in Online Donation and Influence Scams",
   "published_at": "2026-01-05"
  }
 ],
 "source_count": 1,
 "confidence": 0.92,
 "status": "published",
 "origin": "seed_aiid",
 "tags": [
  "deepfake",
  "voice-cloning",
  "impersonation",
  "social-engineering"
 ],
 "created_at": "2026-10-18T06:33:31.967Z",
 "updated_at": "2026-10-18T06:59:35.797Z"
}