Federal prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed an indictment Thursday charging three foreign nationals with using what they call "super intelligence" to mimic the voices and images of corporate chief executives and big-firm lawyers, and so talk employees at companies around the world into wiring about $129 million, according to the Justice Department.
Jacob Soall, 41, of Marbella, Spain, and the United Kingdom, was arrested in Spain on June 17. Sharon Hazan, 54, of Israel, was arrested in Spain on Aug. 5, and Guy Sheetrit, 42, of Israel and the United Arab Emirates, was arrested in the United Kingdom on Sept. 7. Extradition requests for all three are pending. The release also lists aliases: Soall as "Seba Clarke" and "Rocky Balboa," Hazan as "Superman Cash," "Impossible Mission," "Fat Boy" and "Ron."
The scheme ran from 2024 to 2026, prosecutors say. The crew allegedly opened with a call to an employee in which a faked voice of the company's CEO asked for help on a confidential financial transaction, then steered the employee to "lawyers at large international law firms" who were supposedly working on the deal. Those lawyers were fakes too. One of them would finally tell the employee to wire a large sum to an account the conspirators controlled.
Three foreign nationals arrested and charged with scheme to use super intelligence to defraud companies of $129 million: "SI technology offers tremendous potential. But the public should recognize that there are some who seek to use