Romance scam victim loses £22,000 to AI ‘girlfriend'
A man in China lost nearly £22,000 to a dating scam after getting into a 'long-distance relationship' with an AI 'girlfriend', state media reported.
The man, identified by his surname Liu, thought he was in a relationship with a girl called Ms Jiao, who interacted with and sent him pictures and videos online. Little did the man from Shanghai city know that Ms Jiao was merely a fictional character being used to dupe him out of his money.
The scammers used generative artificial intelligence to create the fictional persona of Ms Jiao and then convince Mr Liu that the woman needed money to pay medical bills and fund a business, CCTV News reported. They scammed him out of 200,000 yuan, or about £21,722.
A police investigation revealed that the "scammer team' sent Mr Liu 'videos and photos that were all created through AI or made by combining multiple images".
They also created fake medical and reports bills to manipulate the victim into believing his 'girlfriend' was in urgent need of financial assistance.
'Throughout the process, Mr Liu never met Ms Jiao in person,' the report noted.
AI scams have become a growing global concern, with criminals exploiting the technology to impersonate real individuals or create entirely fictional personas for financial fraud.
There have been many AI romance scams in recent years wherein perpetrators create highly realistic digital personas to exploit victims emotionally and financially.
In January, scammers stole £6,61,508 from a French woman, 53, after convincing her that she was in a romantic relationship with Hollywood actor Brad Pitt. The scammers used fake messages and AI videos to dupe the woman, leading her to divorce her husband and suffer significant financial loss.
In November last year, a British woman in her 60s was conned out of £19,752 by a scammer posing as a US army colonel named "Mike Murdy" on Tinder. The fraudster used realistic AI videos and images to establish credibility, persuading her to send substantial funds under various pretenses.
In 2023, an Arizona mother reported that scammers had used AI to replicate her daughter's voice in an attempt to extort $1m (£7,90,086) from her.
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The Courier
44 minutes ago
- The Courier
Bizarre claims of Perthshire tea blagger Thomas Robinson – bomb disposal, surviving deadly snake bites and inventing Bag for Life
It was not just the whirlwind success of Thomas Robinson's Scottish tea plantation that prosecutors found hard to swallow. There were many aspects of the 55-year-old's personal life and Forrest Gump-esque career that were difficult to believe – and even tougher to fact-check. 'I enjoy telling people that I was one of the inventors of the Bag For Life,' he said. 'They don't believe it. Then when they go away and Google it, they come back with a different impression of me.' Robinson, who was this week convicted of a £550k fake Scottish tea fraud, claimed he was part of a team of three people who produced the now ubiquitous shopping carrier for Waitrose in the late 1990s. There is no evidence to back up his claim. Investigators found no connection between the Bag for Life and Thomas Robinson. Or Thomas O'Brien. Or Tam O'Braan. So who is the man behind the Perthshire grown brew that was too good to be true? Taking the witness stand towards the end of his trial, Robinson was asked to declare his name. 'Thomas James O'Brien,' he said. Born Thomas Robinson in Greenwich, London in 1970, he said he went to an Irish primary school in County Down. But he later said by the age of eight he was educated in London. He said he achieved a qualification in food technology from a college in London's Elephant and Castle in the late 1980s. 'It was the same college where Charlie Chaplin and Michael Caine went,' he told jurors. Robinson denied he had ever told anyone he was a member of the British armed forces, but said he was part of the 'Irish Defence Force' for a year in the late 1990s. He served on the Irish border but also went to 'various overseas locations' to guard embassies. When pressed on how a London-born man with a UK passport would be in the Irish army, he told the court: 'One can have dual nationality.' Asked by fiscal depute Joanne Ritchie what kind of discharge he received from the army, Robinson replied: 'Regular.' He insisted he could not divulge any details of his army career. The court heard how he told Jamie Russell of the Wee Tea Company he saw a soldier die in combat. Robinson said his former business associate was confused and he had in fact told him he had seen a man in a Hearts top being killed in a road accident in Thailand. The court heard he had also bragged about being involved in bomb disposal operations and told others he was a military chef. 'You went as far as to make up these elaborate lies so you appeared to be a man of integrity,' Ms Ritchie told him. 'You wanted to appear as someone who people trust.' Around the same time he was supposedly in the army, he claimed to be studying plastics at the Athlone Institute of Technology in Ireland for 'a year and a bit'. Meanwhile, he was enjoying a career as a professional rugby player. He told the court he played 'to a high standard' at several clubs including Blackheath and Liverpool Stanley. He was so good at rugby, he even had a coaching career, he said. At some point, he also studied Gaelic in Kilkenny. But all evidence of his head-spinning achievements during the 1990s were lost in a flood, he said. All of his qualifications, rugby coaching certificates and paperwork from his army days are now a 'pile of mush' in a water-logged part of an outhouse in Dalreoch. Robinson then claimed to work in the flour and cereal industry, before moving into plastics, where he supposedly developed the Bag For Life. By April 2010 when he married partner Grace Wallace in their then-home city of Edinburgh, he had changed his name to Thomas O'Brien. During his tea plantation days he told people – including the press – his wife was a lawyer but in court he said she worked for the office of national statistics. Their marriage certificate reveals Robinson was a chemical engineer, also noting his father James Robinson was a colonel in the Royal Artillery. Asked how he got a job as a chemical engineer with no chemistry qualifications, he said he studied the subject at Napier University – but did not graduate. At some point, he somehow managed to live on a canoe in the Amazon for four years where he was bitten by a deadly spider, as he told Country Life in 2017. In November 2010, his company Thomas James Consultants Ltd – set up to protect his 'intellectual property' – received a £20,469 grant from the European Development Fund. The grant was to develop and test degradable plastics, which became crucial to his tea-growing business in Perthshire. Robinson became director of a company called EconVerte which carried out crop trials and experiments. He told the court his work secured him a contract with President Barrack Obama's administration to carry out maize trials in a dustbowl. Where was this contract now? The same bag of mush in his basement. He resigned from EconVerte in 2012, the year he moved with his family to Dalreoch Farm, Amulree. According to Companies House records, the Wee Tea Plantation was incorporated in August 2014. Sole shareholder Robinson said he had earlier travelled to the Himalayas to see for himself how to grow tea in harsh conditions. There, he was struck by the revelation that quality tea could be grown in Scotland. 'I spoke to an elder there and he said he had always wondered why we didn't do it in Scotland,' he said. 'We have the right conditions, the hills and the water.' He shared his idea with his friend Jamie Russell, who he had met at his Bread Street cafe in Edinburgh around 2008. Robinson told the trial he was a near-daily customer at the coffee shop and the pair bonded over their love of rugby. At the cafe, he also met Derek Walker, another regular customer, as well as Lindsay Deuchars who was an employee. Mr Russell and Mr Walker established the Wee Tea Company at an industrial unit in Dunfermline in 2012. A year or two later, Robinson made a pitch to the fledgling business owners. 'I told Jamie what I was doing,' he said. 'I told him I thought I had worked out how to grow tea in Scotland.' The trio gathered for a meeting in a freezing potting shed in Dalreoch, where Robinson explained his big secret – a 'unique' polymer sheeting that better retained moisture in the soil and prevented crops from being smothered by weeds. Robinson said the plastic sheeting allowed his plants to grow at a much faster rate than normal. He described the sheeting as 'known technology' but used in an innovative way, comparing himself to Steve Jobs inventing the iPhone. Prosecutors said it looked like a bin liner. His role, he said, was to attract larger retailers while supplying Mr Russell with wet tea leaves grown at Amulree. It was decided Robinson would became Tam O'Braan 'for press purposes'. He named himself after the river that runs through his plantation. The plan was to aim for the higher end of the tea market. While they claimed the Dorchester, Balmoral and Fortnum and Mason among their stockists, Robinson had further lofty targets including Harrods and the Savoy. One of the tricks he used to secure sales was to tell people his produce was a favourite of the Queen. When pressed on this, he said he had at some point received a call from a member of staff at Buckingham Palace who told him how much Her Majesty had enjoyed his tea while visiting the Dorchester. Robinson's Wee Tea Plantation was dissolved in October 2019, around the time the Food Standards Scotland probe was getting into full swing. Since, Robinson said he has worked for an environmental company in Birmingham and driven a school bus for Stagecoach during the Covid lockdown. He most recently secured a job as a senior chef at the plush Taymouth Castle, near Kenmore. 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Spectator
an hour ago
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How can France ban outdoor smoking?
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South Wales Argus
an hour ago
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BBC to pay Gerry Adams 100,000 euros in defamation case
Mr Adams took the BBC to court over an episode of its Spotlight programme, and an accompanying online story, which he said defamed him by alleging he sanctioned the killing of former Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson, for which he denies any involvement. A jury at the High Court in Dublin found in his favour on Friday after determining that was the meaning of words included in the programme and article. It also found the BBC's actions were not in good faith and the corporation had not acted in a fair and reasonable way. Mr Adams' legal team said the verdict of the jury was a 'full vindication' for their client while the BBC said it was 'disappointed' with the outcome. Mr Donaldson was shot dead in Co Donegal in 2006, months after admitting his role as a police and MI5 agent over 20 years. In the programme broadcast in September 2016, an anonymous source given the pseudonym Martin claimed the shooting was sanctioned by the political and military leadership of the IRA and that Mr Adams gave 'the final say'. In 2009, the dissident republican group the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the killing and a Garda investigation into the matter remains ongoing. Mr Adams said the allegation was a 'grievous smear' while the BBC has described the legal action as a 'cynical attempt to launder his reputation'. The high-profile republican sought damages of at least 200,000 euro (£168,000) from the BBC. However, the British public service broadcaster had argued it would be a 'cruel joke' to award the former Sinn Fein president any damages. It had argued the allegation was corroborated by five other sources and that Mr Adams had a reputation of being a member of the IRA. Denis Donaldson was killed in 2006 (BBC/PA) After six hours and 49 minutes of deliberations in total, the jury awarded the plaintiff 100,000 euro – which falls within the 'medium' range for defamation. Speaking outside court, Mr Adams said taking this case was 'about putting manners on the British Broadcasting Corporation'. He told reporters: 'I know many, many journalists. I like to think that I get on well with the most of them, and I wish you well, and I would uphold your right to do your job. 'But the British Broadcasting Corporation upholds the ethos of the British state in Ireland, and in my view it's out of sync in many, many fronts with the Good Friday Agreement. 'It hasn't caught on to where we are on this island as part of the process, the continuing process, of building peace and justice, and harmony, and, hopefully, in the time ahead, unity.' He said there is an onus on everyone, including himself, to deal with these legacy issues. He said: 'I'm very mindful of the Donaldson family in the course of this long trial, and indeed of the victims' families who have had to watch all of this. 'I want to say that the Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan should meet the family of Denis Donaldson as quickly as possible, and that there's an onus on both governments and everyone else, and I include myself in this, to try and deal with these legacy issues as best that we can.' Gerry Adams outside the High Court in Dublin after the jury returned its verdict (Brian Lawless/PA) His solicitor Paul Tweed said Mr Adams was 'very pleased with this resounding verdict', adding the award of damages 'speaks for itself'. Johnsons Solicitors, who acted for Mr Adams, said: 'The outcome today has provided a full vindication for our client, Mr Adams.' Speaking outside court, Adam Smyth, director of BBC Northern Ireland, said: 'We are disappointed by this verdict. 'We believe we supplied extensive evidence to the court of the careful editorial processes and journalistic diligence applied to this programme, and to the accompanying online article. 'Moreover, it was accepted by the court and conceded by Gerry Adams' legal team that the Spotlight broadcast and publication were of the highest public interest. 'We didn't want to come to court but it was important that we defend our journalism and we stand by that decision.' He added: 'Our past is difficult terrain for any jury and we thank them for their diligence and careful consideration of the issues in this case. 'The implications of their decision, though, are profound. As our legal team made clear, if the BBC's case cannot be won under existing Irish defamation law, it is hard to see how anyone's could, and they warned how today's decision would hinder freedom of expression. Director of BBC Northern Ireland, Adam Smyth and journalist Jennifer O'Leary outside the High Court (Brian Lawless/PA) 'Of course, a case of this importance, duration and complexity involves significant expense. In common with other media organisations, the BBC has insurance and makes financial provision for ongoing and anticipated legal claims.' BBC Spotlight reporter Jennifer O'Leary said she had 'nothing to hide, only sources to protect'. She also thanked the BBC and its legal team for defending journalism. Ms O'Leary said: 'I'm a big believer in trying your best in life and going about your business with integrity, and I want to pay a particular tribute to our witnesses in court, senator Michael McDowell, Trevor Ringland, and in particular Ann Travers, who spoke so courageously.' She said there were thousands of victims and survivors of the troubles in the UK and Ireland, adding: 'Those people carry the burden of their grief and trauma with incredible dignity and courage, and they are the people I am thinking of, I know my colleagues are also thinking of. I am thinking of all of them today.' The BBC will have to pay costs but the amount has yet to be decided. Mr Smyth added the corporation will take some time to consider the implications of the ruling.
