Chinese woman, 65, plays dual roles of beautiful doctor and mum to con man out of US$25,000

A 65-year-old Chinese woman used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to impersonate both a young doctor and her mother, successfully scamming 170,000 yuan (US$25,000) from a man.Liu Hui, a resident of Shanghai, connected with a woman named Yu Xiuzhen on a social media platform in 2021.Yu asserted that she was a 29-year-old doctor at a prestigious Grade 3A hospital in Shanghai, claiming influence over her hospital’s property engineering projects.Over the past five years, Yu frequently shared details of her daily life on her profile, amassing nearly 7,000 video posts and attracting 10,000 followers.Liu, a property contractor, believed that Yu could assist him in securing projects, prompting him to pursue a romantic relationship with her.Despite living in the same city, Yu claimed she could not meet Liu due to her mother’s disapproval. She stated that they could only meet if he provided a dowry of 300,000 yuan (US$45,000) and bought property in Shanghai.Over the course of five months, Liu transferred a total of 170,000 yuan to Yu, even though they never met in person.The victim, a property contractor, pursued a romantic relationship with Yu in the belief that she could help him secure lucrative business projects. Photo: 163.comAt times, Liu’s requests for video calls were also declined, as Yu claimed her mother was present.Furthermore, Yu never advanced the engineering project as she had promised.Sensing something off, Liu contacted the police.The authorities swiftly located the scammer Yu, who was actually born in 1961.She possessed no medical qualifications and worked merely as a cleaner at a hospital. The account used to receive the funds was registered under another man’s name.Upon reviewing Yu’s videos, the police discovered small characters in some that indicated, “This work contains AI-generated content.”It was revealed that Yu used AI to enhance her appearance and fabricate her attractive doctor persona through compositing scenes. On occasion, she also portrayed her mother to convince Liu that her mother was obstructing their relationship.Liu remarked that he had never noticed the small characters and had no understanding of AI.The police disclosed that Yu had spent the money she scammed on cosmetic surgery, skincare, and clothing.In reality, the scammer, above, was a hospital cleaner who used Artificial Intelligence to fabricate her glamorous online persona. Photo: 163.comAdditionally, she had a prior conviction for fraud and was sentenced to four years in prison in 2009.Recently, police publicised the case to alert people to a new type of AI-driven online dating scam.According to data from the Ministry of Public Security, over 10 billion yuan (US$1.5 billion) was involved in telecommunications and online fraud nationwide in the first half of last year.In just the first quarter of last year, instances of AI face-swapping and voice-mimicking fraud cases surged by 45 per cent.An online observer quipped: “This 65-year-old woman is better at AI than me, a 35-year-old.”Further ReadingAnother remarked: “The man fell for the scam also due to his greed for business opportunities.”