SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Oct. 26, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — The Salt Lake City Police Department has issued an alert about a scam that uses a voice imitating that of the department’s chief, Mike Brown.
A Woods Cross resident alerted police to the email, from a fake SLCPD account.
“The video message included footage taken from an interview Chief Brown did with ABC4 several years ago,” the police statement says.
“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 sounds like Brown’s voice, the statement says, “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 message came from a Google account with the SLCPD’s name, followed by numerals.
All legitimate Salt Lake City emails come from the email domain “slc.gov,” the statement says.
Scam calls
“By manipulating videos and recordings from the internet, scammers can create realistic voice recordings, and even videos, known as ‘voice cloning’ or ‘deep fakes.’ Typically, these scams involve a call from what sounds like a distressed loved one urgently asking for money.”
The department suggests people receiving urgent calls suspected to be fraudulent should not immediately send the funds, typically requested through untraceable sources such as wire transfer or gift cards. Call recipients should ask personal questions about the loved one, which a scammer would not know how to answer.
The SLCPD suggests hanging up and calling the person at his or her known phone number.
The department also advises against sharing personal details on social media, which scammers may mine to make their calls more convincing.
The investigation into the fraudulent video that appears to feature the police chief is ongoing, the statement says. Anyone receiving a suspected scam message involving a law enforcement agency should contact that agency.
