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SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake City police are urging caution against scammers using artificial intelligence to impersonate police.
The warning comes after a Woods Cross resident reported receiving an email from what appeared to be a police account and featured a video message that used AI to impersonate Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown, police said in a statement Friday.
The video message used footage taken from an ABC4 interview of Brown from several years ago. The audio said the recipient had a wire transfer rejected and claimed the recipient still owed the federal government almost $100,000, police said.
"The audio itself is clear and closely impersonates the voice of Chief Brown, which could lead community members to believe the message was legitimate," the police statement says.
After careful analysis, the message was found to contain unnatural speech patterns, unusual emphasis on words and an inconsistent tone. It also had "detectable acoustic edits" between the sentences, police said.
The fake email came from a Google account with the police department's name followed by a number. Police emphasized that all official emails from the Salt Lake City Police Department will have the email domain "slc.gov."
"By manipulating videos and recordings from the internet, scammers can create realistic voice recordings and even videos, known as 'voice cloning' or 'deepfakes.' Typically, these scams involve a call from what sounds like a distressed loved one urgently asking for money," police said.
Signs of a voice-cloning scam include unexpected or unsolicited contacts, feeling pressured to act quickly, the messenger urgently requesting money, asking for private or personal information, or being asked to keep a secret.
Police said asking questions, verifying calls, pausing to think and limiting social media sharing can help protect yourself against scams.
