DOJ Indicts Three in $129M AI CEO Voice-Clone Fraud Ring

Three foreign nationals were indicted for running an AI-enabled impersonation scheme that stole more than $129 million from seven companies, NBC News reported on the Justice Department filing. Prosecutors say Jacob Soall, Sharon Hazan and Guy Sheetrit used AI-generated voices and images to pose as CEOs, then posed as attorneys at major law firms to push accounting staff into wiring funds abroad before converting the money to cryptocurrency.

The named victims span sectors and states: an investment bank in New York, a hospital system in Missouri, a bank in Rhode Island, a hospital system in California, a financial technology company in the U.K., a mutual fund company in Massachusetts, and a pet food company in Florida. The operation ran from July 2024 to February 2026.

Each defendant faces seven counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and money laundering conspiracy. Each count carries a maximum 20-year sentence. Soall was arrested in Spain in June, Hazan in Spain in August, and Sheetrit in the United Kingdom in September.

U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said "the public should recognize that there are some who seek to use this emerging technology to pursue criminal goals."

The indictment alleges the group would "use AI technology to mimic the company CEO's voice" and then pose as attorneys to instruct victims to "wire large amounts of money to bank accounts set up worldwide," before moving on to "convert the cash into cryptocurrency in an attempt to conceal the source, ownership, and control of the stolen proceeds." Prosecutors also allege Hazan "boasted that he had been laundering money since 1994; that he had laundered over $400 million in just the past three years."

The filing lands the same day DOJ unveiled a Super Intelligence Task Force to prosecute AI misuse, and it is one of 23 deepfake-related stories we have tracked in the last 90 days.