Federal prosecutors in New York have charged 3 people with using AI to impersonate company CEOs and attorneys at major law firms in a scheme that allegedly took about $129 million from businesses around the world.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced the indictment on Nov. 5. Jacob Soall, 41, of Marbella, Spain, and the UK; Sharon Hazan, 54, of Israel; and Guy Sheetrit, 42, of Israel and the United Arab Emirates face charges including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering.
Prosecutors say the scheme ran between 2024 and 2026 and targeted thousands of companies. Alleged victims include hospital systems in Missouri and California, a bank in Rhode Island, a financial technology company in the UK, a mutual fund company in Massachusetts, and a pet food company in Florida.
The charges are allegations, and all 3 defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
For in-house legal teams, one detail stands out. The alleged fraud did not stop at a fake CEO. It relied on a fake lawyer to close the deal.
The alleged scheme used outside counsel as its final layer of credibility
According to court documents cited by the Associated Press, the group often targeted accounting departments. An employee would receive an email that appeared to come from the CEO, asking for help with a confidential financial transaction.
A phone or video call would follow. Prosecutors say the defendants used AI to mimic the CEO’s voice and, in some cases, the CEO’s image.
The employee would then be told to contact an attorney at a major law firm. That attorney was also an impersonation. Prosecutors say the fake lawyer instructed staff to wire large payments to bank accounts in countries including the US, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and the United Arab Emirates. The money was then converted into cryptocurrency to hide where it came from.
Soall allegedly impersonated mainly UK attorneys. According to the US Attorney’s Office, he kept a handwritten script titled “Lawyer Call” to sound like a real attorney, and prosecutors say it included language designed to stop employees discussing the calls with colleagues.
The law firms whose attorneys were impersonated have not been named publicly.
Prosecutors also say Hazan and Sheetrit laundered proceeds from the scheme. Hazan was convicted of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in the same district in 2008, according to the US Attorney’s Office.
AI impersonation fraud turns a familiar check into a weak point
Requests that impersonate a senior executive and press for a secret, urgent payment are a familiar fraud pattern. Many finance teams already train staff to treat an unusual email from the CEO with suspicion.
What this case adds is a second step. When an employee doubts an email, a voice or video call has long been treated as a reasonable way to check. Prosecutors allege the group used AI to make that check work in its favor.
The lawyer role added another layer. A confidential deal routed through a well-known firm sounds plausible to finance staff, who may assume their own legal department has already reviewed it. An instruction to keep the matter quiet also fits the way genuine transaction work is often handled, which makes it harder for a junior employee to challenge.
That puts in-house legal teams closer to payment controls than they might expect, and adds to the growing role legal already plays in managing cyber risk. If fraudsters can pose as outside counsel, the legal department is one of the few groups inside a company that can quickly confirm whether a firm has actually been retained on a matter.
US Attorney Jamie McDonald urged businesses to prepare. “I encourage individuals and the business community to consider how to best protect themselves from the emerging threat of SI-enabled crime,” he said. His office uses “SI,” short for super intelligence, in place of artificial intelligence.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle Jr. said the FBI is adapting its capabilities as criminals “continue to weaponize emerging technologies.”
Extradition and verification questions remain open
All 3 defendants were arrested in Europe. Soall was arrested in Spain on June 17, Hazan in Spain on Aug. 5, and Sheetrit in the UK on Sept. 7. Extradition requests for all 3 are pending.
If convicted, each charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, apart from aggravated identity theft, which carries 2 years, according to the US Attorney’s Office. The FBI has also invited other companies that believe they may be victims to come forward.
For legal departments, a more immediate question is already on the table. If a finance employee received a call today from a partner at a well-known firm about a confidential deal, how quickly could anyone inside the company confirm the call was real?
Source:
US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York
Associated Press via WJXT
