AI Deepfakes of CEOs and Lawyers Stole $129 Million, Prosecutors Say

2. Prosecutors say employees at hospitals, a bank and other firms wired out $129 million.

3. All three were arrested in Spain and Britain, and the U.S. is seeking their extradition.

Three men used artificial intelligence to impersonate corporate executives and attorneys at major law firms, persuading company employees to wire more than $129 million into accounts the group controlled between 2024 and early 2026, according to a federal indictment unsealed Nov. 5 in Manhattan.

Jacob Soall, 41, of Marbella, Spain, Sharon Hazan, 54, of Israel, and Guy Sheetrit, 42, of Israel and the United Arab Emirates face seven counts of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering that carry a combined maximum of 104 years in prison. Spanish police arrested Soall in June and Hazan in August, Britain’s National Crime Agency detained Sheetrit in September, and U.S. extradition requests for all three are pending.

Prosecutors say the group typically posed as a company’s chief executive, using AI to mimic the CEO’s voice or image on calls with an employee, and asked for help with a confidential deal.

The employee was then referred to lawyers at large international firms, whom the group also impersonated, and one of those fake attorneys eventually supplied the account for the wire.

The identified losses include $11.6 million from a British financial technology company, $5.2 million from a Florida pet food maker, $4.8 million from a Missouri hospital system, $4.6 million from a Massachusetts mutual fund company, nearly $3 million from a California hospital system and $2.7 million from a Rhode Island bank. The money passed through accounts in nine countries, including the United States, Spain and China, before the group converted it into cryptocurrency and divided it.

Soall mostly played British attorneys and kept a handwritten script titled “Lawyer Call” with lines meant to keep employees from discussing the transaction with colleagues, prosecutors said.

Hazan and Sheetrit laundered the proceeds, and Hazan, who was convicted of bank fraud conspiracy in the same Manhattan court in 2008, boasted of laundering more than $400 million in the past three years and called himself “number one all over the world.”

The alleged haul is roughly five times the $25.6 million that British engineering firm Arup lost in 2024 after a Hong Kong employee joined a video call with a deepfake of its finance chief. It also dwarfs the just over $30 million in AI-linked business email compromise losses that victims reported to the FBI for all of 2025, a count the bureau’s Internet Crime Report logs only when victims recognize that AI was used. SOFX has previously reported fraudsters adding AI-generated voice notes to text scams aimed at parents.

The Justice Department’s announcement called the technology “super intelligence,” following a Sept. 29 executive order directing federal agencies to use it in place of artificial intelligence. “SI technology offers tremendous potential,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said, while urging businesses to consider how to protect themselves from “the emerging threat of SI-enabled crime.” The FBI has asked anyone who believes they were targeted to the bureau through its online tips page.

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