Cybercriminals have targeted multiple lawmakers in Macao by sending them emails that threatened to publicly post fake AI-generated images and videos of them in compromising situations unless they agreed to hand over a sum of money.
According to multiple media reports, legislator Leong Hong Sai asked the secretary for security, Wong Sio Chak, yesterday how he plans to deal with the so-called sextortion cases involving AI face-swapping technology.
Wong said that an investigation by the Judiciary Police was already underway, conceding that the use of AI-generated videos was “new” and had “never happened in Macao.”
Macao Daily News spoke with an unnamed male legislator, who revealed that the AI-generated images he was sent depicted a naked man and woman in bed with the man’s face swapped with his own.
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Written at the bottom of the images were a number of threats, one of which read, “If these videos make it to online platforms, it will have a massive impact on you… I believe you don’t want this incident to impact your family and work.”
Meanwhile, an unnamed female legislator who reportedly spoke to the news outlet said that as far as she knows, no female lawmakers were targeted by the scam.
The sending of AI sextortion emails in Macao comes only days after Hong Kong legislators received similar threats from cyber criminals.
Online crimes have been growing significantly in Macao in recent years, with Wong telling the Legislative Assembly yesterday that the daily number of cyber attacks and hacking incidents involving Macao’s critical infrastructure grew from 6,000 cases in 2020 to 6,200 cases this year.
