PUBLIC RELATIONS UNIT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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SLCPD Warns of AI-Generated Scam Using Voice of Chief Mike Brown

SALT LAKE CITY — Today, the Salt Lake City Police Department (SLCPD) learned a community member in Woods Cross, Utah received an email from a fake SLCPD account. The email featured a video message artificially generated to impersonate the voice of SLCPD Chief Mike Brown.

The video message included footage taken from an interview Chief Brown did with ABC4 (KTVX) several years ago.

The audio informed the recipient that a wire transfer made to an LLC was rejected because of a reference number missing.

The message continued to claim that the recipient still owed the federal government nearly $100,000.

The audio itself is clear and closely impersonates the voice of Chief Brown, which could lead community members to believe the message was legitimate.

However, when carefully analyzed, the message had unnatural speech patterns, odd emphasis on certain words, and an inconsistent tone. The audio also had detectable acoustic edits from one sentence to the next.

The email with the AI-generated message came from a Google account and had the Salt Lake City Police Department’s name in it followed by a numeric number.

All official email sent from the Salt Lake City Police Department come from the email domain of “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.

Potential signs of a voice-cloning scam:

·       The contact you received is unexpected or unsolicited.

·       You feel pressured to act quickly.

·       The caller or message urgently requests money via wire transfer, gift card, payment app, or cryptocurrency, making it difficult to recover funds.

·       They ask for personal or private information.

·       You’re told to keep the request a secret.

Ways on how to protect yourself:

·       Ask specific questions: Caller ID can be faked, and while a scammer may sound familiar, they may not answer specific personal questions accurately, timely, or fully.

·       Verify the call: Hang up and contact the person directly by calling their trusted phone number, not the number that called you. If they’re unreachable, try reaching out through another family member or friend.

·       Pause and think: Scammers often create urgency to manipulate you. Take a moment to step back and consider the totality of the situation and message.

·       Limit social media sharing: Scammers can use publicly shared information to create convincing impersonations.

The information contained in this news release is based on a preliminary review of the details available to the Salt Lake City Police Department.

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