Federal prosecutors in New York have indicted Jacob Soall, Sharon Hazan, and Guy Sheetrit for orchestrating a massive international fraud operation. The trio allegedly utilized AI voice cloning to impersonate executives and steal approximately $129 million from various global corporations.
The $129 million heist fueled by AI voice cloning
The scale of the theft is staggering, with federal prosecutors announcing on Thursday that Jacob Soall, Sharon Hazan, and Guy Sheetrit targeted thousands of companies across multiple continents. According to the indictment filed in a U.S. district Court in New York, the group spent over a year and a half exploiting advanced artificial intelligence to bypass corporate security. Their strategy relied on a combination of urgent emails appearing to come from CEOs and subsequent phone or video calls where AI was used to mimic the voices and images of those executives.
This method represents a dangerous evolution in business email compromise (BEC) attacks. While traditional phishing relies on text, the use of AI-generated audio and video creates a psychological pressure that makes accounting employees more likey to bypass standard verification protocols. By mimicking the specific cadence and tone of a CEO, the defendants were able to authorize massive transfers of wealth with minimal scrutiny.
Jacob Soall's 'Lawyer Call' script and the illusion of legality
To add a layer of professional legitimacy to their scams, the group didn't just impersonate executives; they fabricated an entire legal framework. Court documents reveal that Jacob Soall focused on pretending to be attorneys from the United Kingdom. To ensure his performance was convincing, Soall utilized a handwritten script titled Lawyer Call, which he used to guide his conversations with victims and maintain the persona of a genuine legal professional .
As reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office,this scripted approach was designed to create a false sense of legal urgency. By directing victims to contact specific fake attorneys, the group effectively closed the loop of verification—if an employee questioned the CEO's request, they were simply referred to a "lawyer" who was actually another member of the fraud ring or a simulated persona.
From Missouri hospitals to Florida pet food firms
The diversity of the victims underscores the opportunistic nature of the scheme. The indictment lists a wide array of targeted organizations, including hospital systems in California and Missouri, a mutual fund company in Massachusetts, and a bank in Rhode Island. Even a pet food company in Florida and a financial technology firm in the United Kingdom fell prey to the group's tactics. The defendants specifically targeted accounting departments, where they could pressure staff into wiring funds to global bank accounts under the guise of urgent executive orders.
This international reach was mirrored by the backgrounds of the perpetrators themselves. The group operated across borders, with members hailing from the United Arab Emirates, Israel, the United Kingdom, and Spain. This geographic dispersion likely helped them evade detection for the eighteen months the operation remained active.
Sharon Hazan's 2008 fraud record and the 'Superman Cash' network
The operation was not merely a product of new technology, but of experienced criminal coordination. Sharon Hazan, one of the three primary defendants, was previously convicted of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in a New York court in 2008. the group operated under a series of colorful aliases, including "Superman Cash," "Rocky Balboa," and "Fat Boy," according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The legal stakes for the trio are now immense. If convicted , Jacob Soall, Sharon Hazan , and Guy Sheetrit each face a maximum of 20 years in prison for wire fraud, in addition to a potential two-year sentence for aggravated identity theft. The defendants were arrested between June and September, though the case docket remained sealed until recently.
The missing trail of cryptocurrency conversions
While the indictment details the theft, several critical questions remain regarding the movement of the $129 million. The report says the group converted the stolen funds into cryptocurrency to hide the money trail before distributing the assets among the trio and other unnamed associates. However, the indictment does not specify which cryptocurrencies were used or how much of the total sum has been recovered by authorities.
Furthermore, it remains unclear how the group obtained the high-quality audio and video samples required to create convincing AI clones of various global CEOs. whether they scraped public earnings calls, YouTube interviews, or utilized more invasive hacking methods to gather voice data is a detail not yet clarified in the public filings.
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