GCD AI RADAR
incidents/AIR-2022-0037

Yahoo Boys scammers deploy real-time deepfakes in video call romance scams

AI-enabled attack4 Confirmed real-world lossDeepfake fraudAI phishing / social engineering

Nigerian fraud rings reportedly adopted real-time face-swapping deepfakes during live video calls to impersonate attractive identities. Victims were manipulated into believing their romantic partners were real, leading to significant financial losses.

Details

type
AI-enabled attack
Attackers used AI as a meaningful part of a cyberattack against someone else.
categories
  • Deepfake fraudprimary
    Synthetic voice, video or images used to impersonate people for fraud, extortion or access.
  • AI phishing / social engineering
    Phishing, lures and social engineering produced or personalised at scale with AI.
owasp llm top 10
no entry for these categories
mitre atlas
Both rows are derived from the type and categories (OWASP 2025 edition, ATLAS release 2026.09), not classified per record. How
severity
4 · Confirmed real-world loss
Financial loss, PHI/PII breach, safety impact or regulatory action.
targets
Individuals
products
Face-swapping deepfake software
incident date
1 May 2022
first reported
1 May 2022
origin
AI Incident Database
Derived from the AI Incident Database (CC BY-SA 4.0).
classifier confidence
0.90 · published at or above 0.80; see the methodology
tags
deepfake · face-swap · romance-scam · fraud
record
created 2026-10-18 06:33Z · updated 2026-10-18 06:59Z · json

Sources · 1

  1. 2022-05-01
    Yahoo Boys Allegedly Employ Real-Time Deepfake Technology in Romance Scams
    AI Incident Database · incidentdatabase.ai/cite/911

Titles and links belong to their publishers. The summary above is written by GCD AI RADAR in its own words; data is CC BY-SA 4.0.

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