The 10 most common crypto scams right now and how they actually work

The rise of AI-powered family impersonation

Financial fraud has entered a new phase of industrialization, where criminals leverage artificial intelligence to execute highly convincing impersonation scams. By utilizing voice and video cloning technologies, attackers can now bypass traditional skepticism by mimicking the identities of trusted family members to solicit emergency funds.

What happened

Recent incidents highlight the dangerous effectiveness of AI in social engineering. In 2024, a family in San Francisco was targeted by scammers who used voice-cloning technology to simulate their son’s voice, attempting to coerce the parents into paying a fraudulent bail fee. A similar case occurred in Florida, where a woman was defrauded of $15,000 after receiving a call from an AI-generated voice mimicking her daughter, who claimed to be in distress following a fabricated car accident.

These attacks are part of a broader trend identified by INTERPOL, where organized crime networks use low-cost digital tools to scale their operations. According to industry data, operations leveraging AI tools are earning significantly more per campaign than traditional fraud, with an average take of $3.2 million per operation. These criminals often source audio or video samples from social media to create realistic clones, enabling them to launch personalized attacks that exploit the emotional vulnerability of their targets. INTERPOL warns that these scams are part of a borderless threat environment where anonymity and rapid adaptability make it increasingly difficult for law enforcement to track and disrupt the underlying criminal networks. Consumers are advised to remain extremely cautious regarding urgent or emotionally charged requests for money, even when the caller sounds like a known associate or family member.