What happened
In early 2020 a branch manager of a Japanese company in Hong Kong received a call from a voice he recognised as a director of the parent business, who said the company was about to make an acquisition and needed transfers authorised. Emails purportedly from the director and from a lawyer named Martin Zelner appeared to corroborate the story. UAE prosecutors, who investigated the case, said in a US legal assistance request that up to US$35 million was moved and that at least 17 people were involved. Forbes obtained the court filing in 2021.
How the deception worked
The pretext was a confidential corporate acquisition that required the branch to release large sums quickly. The channel was a phone call from a person whose voice the manager had heard before, reinforced by a parallel email thread from the same director and from an outside lawyer retained to coordinate the deal, which is a familiar and legitimising pattern in M&A work. Secrecy was built into the story, so the manager had a reason not to ask colleagues. The layered corroboration between a recognised voice and matching documentation removed his doubt, and the transfers were executed before anyone verified through an independent channel.
AI involvement · Suspected AI-enabled
UAE investigators stated in court filings that the fraudsters used 'deep voice' technology to clone a company director's speech for the phone call. The specific tooling was not established publicly.
The control that would have caught it· our reading, not a claim from the sources
Any acquisition-related payment instruction should require verification through a pre-established channel with a named counterparty, not the contact details supplied inside the request itself.
Sources (2)
- Fraudsters Cloned Company Director's Voice In $35 Million Bank Heist, Police FindForbes·forbes.comOpen ↗
- Reported AI-Cloned Voice Used to Deceive Hong Kong Bank Manager in Purported $35 Million Fraud SchemeAI Incident Database·incidentdatabase.aiOpen ↗
This entry summarises public reporting. It is not a legal finding, and details can change as investigations conclude. Found an error? Send a correction.