According to local media reports, a South Korean woman fell victim to a romantic scam. She lost 70 million won (£40,000) after falling for a deepfake video purporting to be from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
The victim, who went by the alias Jeong Ji-sun, claimed that it was like a dream come true when she started corresponding with a man on Instagram who claimed to be the American tech mogul.
She told the South Korean station KBS that “Mr Musk” talked about his kids, uploaded photos from his job, and reached out to admirers randomly.
“I experienced something like a dream last year,” she told the broadcaster.
“On July 17, ‘Musk’ added me as a friend on Instagram. Although I have been a huge fan of Musk after reading his autobiography, I doubted it at first.”
“Musk” emailed me a picture of himself and his ID card at work. ‘Musk’ also mentioned his kids and how he commutes by helicopter to work at SpaceX or Tesla. She said, “He also mentioned that he gets in touch with fans randomly.
He also spoke highly of his meeting with Yoon Suk Yeol, the president of South Korea, in April 2023, praising the nation as the perfect location for a Tesla factory.
After they had a video call and the con man she believed to be the American businessman declared his love for her, she no longer had the same doubts about her new Instagram acquaintance. The victim was unaware at the time that the con artist was utilizing a deepfake video of Elon Musk.
“‘Musk’ even said, ‘I love you, you know that?’ when we made a video call,” she said.
The con artist then gave the woman access to a Korean bank account and convinced her to invest her money to make a fortune.
“‘I’m happy when my fans are getting rich because of me,'” she explained that the con artist told her.
It was the most recent in a string of con games featuring the founder of SpaceX, whose profile has skyrocketed in the last several years. The con artists use the billionaire’s identity to steal money from gullible people.
A school teacher in Hampshire, UK, lost all her assets in 2021 after falling for a Bitcoin hoax claiming Elon Musk would “double her investment.” Julie Bushnell invested £9,000 in a fictitious scam that purported to be a Bitcoin “giveaway” from a wealthy US businessman.
