Deepfake scams infiltrate social media as voice cloning becomes easier - investigatetv.com
AI deepfake scams are on the rise, infiltrating social media platforms with increasing ease as voice cloning technology becomes more accessible to scammers.
- Incident date
- Apr 2026
- Target
- Ronnie Dodson
Scammers are leveraging AI to clone voices, creating deepfakes that can be used for financial fraud and impersonation. It only takes seconds of audio to create a convincing voice clone.
What happened
Brewster County Sheriff Ronnie Dodson discovered that someone had taken old YouTube videos of him and created a viral AI deepfake video using his voice to endorse a health supplement. Licensed cosmetologist Karen Flowers had a similar experience when someone used her image from her YouTube channel to create a deepfake of her selling life insurance. YouTube eventually removed the fake channel, but these cases highlight how realistic AI-generated content can be and how difficult it can be to detect. Experts say deepfakes are infiltrating social feeds, most commonly on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.