Captain Steve Moser AI media incident — Oct 2026
Scammers in Florida are using AI voice cloning and official photos to impersonate a sheriff captain in a deceptive scheme involving fake arrest warrants
- Reported date
- Oct 19, 2026
- Target
- Captain Steve Moser
The exact incident date was not established. This entry is dated by its source report.
Scammers are leveraging artificial intelligence to impersonate law enforcement officers, cloning their voices to deceive victims into believing they have outstanding arrest warrants or missed jury duty. This sophisticated tactic aims to intimidate individuals into surrendering personal information or significant sums of money.
What happened
In Osceola County, Florida, perpetrators targeted residents by impersonating Captain Steve Moser, a real officer with the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office. The scammers utilized AI to clone Moser’s voice and paired it with his official photograph, which is publicly available on the agency’s website, to add a layer of legitimacy to their calls. The voicemail messages instructed recipients to contact the sheriff’s office regarding their supposed legal issues.
Sheriff Chris Blackmon confirmed that the voice and photo used in these communications were unauthorized and part of a broader trend of impersonation scams. Cybersecurity experts note that modern AI tools can generate convincing voice clones using as little as five to twenty seconds of audio, often sourced from videos posted online. The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office has issued warnings to the public, emphasizing that they will never call residents to demand payment for resolving warrants or missed jury duty. Officials advise that if a caller demands immediate payment to avoid arrest, the recipient should hang up and independently verify the agency's contact information through official channels rather than relying on details provided by the caller.