A woman in South Korea lost around $350,000 after being tricked by a scammer who used deepfake technology to pretend to be the actor Lee Jung-jae, known for his role in Squid Game.
Okay, so AI is seriously leveling up, like, fast. I’ve been seeing stuff from Sora and Gemini that looks unbelievably real – seriously realistic images and videos. It’s already tricked a bunch of people on social media, and honestly, it’s kinda wild how convincing it is.
A criminal used a realistic, AI-generated fake video of a popular South Korean celebrity to trick a woman into sending them hundreds of thousands of dollars in a sophisticated online romance scam.
Okay, so you probably know Lee Jung-jae as the main guy, Seong Gi-hun, from Squid Game, right? He was already super popular in Korea, but that show on Netflix totally blew him up internationally – everyone knows his name now!
Taking advantage of the actor’s rising fame, a fraudster used AI to create fake images of him, hoping to deceive people into sending money.
Scammers used AI to impersonate Squid Game star
In mid-October, Korean news reported a group of scammers were pretending to be Lee to trick people out of money. These ‘romance scammers’ were targeting victims online.
One victim, a woman in her 50s named A, lost around 500 million won (about $350,000) to scammers over six months. She believed she was sending the money to an actor from the popular show Squid Game.
Scammers used AI to create fake images of the actor and even included a fake driver’s license to appear legitimate. They also tried to build trust by using affectionate terms like ‘honey’ or ‘sweetie’ when contacting the victim.
They tricked the woman into thinking she was in a romantic relationship with Lee, and led her to believe they would eventually meet in person.
Looking back, it’s pretty clear now that I was caught in a ‘romance scam.’ Basically, someone online pretended to be interested in me to try and steal my money – it’s a total fraud where they fake a relationship to get you to send them cash. It’s messed up, but I’ve learned my lesson.
Police in South Gyeongsang Province are investigating the incident and exploring potential connections to a group based in Cambodia.
Lee’s representatives have addressed the situation, stating that the Netflix personality was not involved in any way with the individual known as ‘A’ or the related romance scam.
Someone recently committed a crime by pretending to be our artist and asking people for money. We want to be clear that neither our company nor any of our artists will ever ask for money, bank transfers, or any kind of financial help, under any circumstances, according to the Korea Times.
If you receive any suspicious requests, please ignore them and be careful to protect yourself from scams. We’re working with the authorities to investigate this and will take strong measures to keep our artists and fans safe.
People have been tricked out of money by scammers impersonating celebrities before. For example, last year a woman was deceived by someone pretending to be Dacre Montgomery, the actor who plays Billy on the show Stranger Things.
During their fake relationship, the scammer, posing as ‘Dacre’, falsely claimed he was in an abusive situation and managed to get $10,000 from the victim before the deception was discovered.
Read More
- SD Gundam G Generation Eternal global revenues have surpassed $200 million
- Avengers: Doomsday Rumor Addresses Tom Holland’s Spider-Man Status
- New Research Suggests US Gamers Buy Less New Titles Than You Might Think
- AI Animal Crossing Hack Turns The Villagers Against Tom Nook
- Rockstar Fans Pay Tribute To The Late D’Angelo, The Artist Behind RDR2’s Best Song
- The X-Files’ Secret Hannibal Lecter Connection Led to 1 of the Show’s Scariest Monsters Ever
- Yakuza: Like a Dragon joins the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog next week on October 21
- Gold Rate Forecast
- The Boys: Sister Sage’s Major Weakness Revealed In Gen V Season 2
- Clayface DCU Movie Gets Exciting Update From Star
2025-10-30 20:19