For years the advice for spotting a scam was simple: if you are not sure, get them on a video call. If you can see and hear the person, it is probably real.

In 2024 that advice died in a meeting room in Hong Kong.

What happened

In January 2024 , a finance employee at the Hong Kong office of Arup , the British engineering firm behind landmarks like the Sydney Opera House, received a message that appeared to come from the company's UK-based chief financial officer . It talked about a confidential transaction.

The employee was suspicious. Good instinct. So they joined a video call to check.

On the call: the CFO, plus several colleagues they recognised. Faces, voices, mannerisms. Everything looked right. The instructions were clear, so the employee followed them.

Over the following days they made 15 transfers to five bank accounts , totalling HK$200 million , around US$25 million .

Every other person on that call was an AI-generated deepfake .…