DeepfakeMedium
Scammers Allegedly Used AI-Generated Voice in Boone County, Missouri, Kidnapping Ransom Scam
- Occurred
- Jul 17, 2026
- Published
- Jul 18, 2026
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
Boone County, Missouri, authorities said a resident received a call on July 17, 2026, that displayed the resident's daughter's name and number and used an AI-generated imitation of her voice to claim she had been kidnapped at gunpoint. A second voice demanded ransom. A coordinated police response located the daughter safely in Jefferson City, unaware of the call; no payment or arrest was reported.
Developers
- Deepfake technology developers
- Voice cloning technology developers
- Synthetic media generation technology developers
- Synthetic audio generation technology developers
Deployers
- Unidentified perpetrators of Boone County, Missouri, AI voice kidnapping scam
- Scammers
- Synthetic media creators
- Deepfake creators
- Extortionists
- Voice cloning impersonation scammers
Harmed parties
- Boone County, Missouri, resident targeted by alleged AI voice kidnapping scam
- Daughter of Boone County, Missouri, resident targeted by alleged AI voice kidnapping scam
- Boone County Sheriff's Office
- Law enforcement
- Victims of deepfake abuse
- Targets of scams
- Public safety
- Epistemic integrity
- Privacy
- Victims of voice cloning impersonation scams
- Families
Tags
- response
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: AI voice cloning used in kidnapping scam caused distress but no actual harm or financial loss occurred.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8