Thought Leadership
Three men allegedly used cloned voices and fake videos to trick corporate accounting departments around the world into making multimillion-dollar wire transfers. According to the indictment, one co-defendant boasts of having been laundering money since 1994.
At one company, the money was almost gone. An employee had already approved a payment of $2.85 million, but the back office stopped the transfer just before it was executed. That is how Israeli news outlet Ynetnews describes the incident. Other companies were not quick enough to detect the fraud.
According to an indictment made public by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) in early November, more than $129 million was funneled to an international fraud network between 2024 and 2026. The South China Morning Post reports that the group targeted thousands of companies worldwide. Three alleged members have now been named in the indictment: Jacob Soall, 41, who lives in Marbella and the UK; Sharon Hazan, 54, from Israel; and Guy Sheetrit, 42, who lives in Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Two Roles, One Script
The scheme relied on two layers of deception. According to the indictment, the perpetrators initially contacted employees at targeted companies while impersonating their CEOs, using AI-generated voices and, in some cases, fabricated video images. A supposed lawyer then entered the picture, claiming to represent one of the world’s 50 largest law firms and ultimately providing specific instructions for the payment.
The lawyers were fake, too. Soall allegedly took on the role of British legal professionals in particular, following a handwritten guide titled “Lawyer Call.” According to prosecutors, its purpose was to persuade the people being called not to discuss the transaction with anyone else inside their companies.
The money was transferred to accounts in the United States, Spain, Portugal, Greece, the United Arab Emirates and other countries.
From Hospitals to Pet Food Manufacturers
The largest individual loss cited in the indictment involved a UK-based fintech company, which reportedly lost around $11.58 million. Other victims included two hospital networks in Missouri (around $4.83 million) and California (nearly $2.97 million), an investment fund based in Massachusetts (around $4.64 million), a New York investment firm ($2.8 million), a Rhode Island bank (around $2.68 million) and a Florida-based pet food manufacturer (around $5.24 million).
A Familiar Name to U.S. Justice Officials
While Soall allegedly handled much of the phone-based deception, investigators primarily accuse Hazan and Sheetrit of laundering the proceeds. Hazan reportedly boasted that he had been in the business since 1994 and had laundered more than $400 million over the past three years. He is already known to New York prosecutors: in 2008, he was convicted there of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
Each of the three defendants faces seven counts, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. The conspiracy to commit wire fraud charge alone carries a potential prison sentence of up to 20 years. All three have already been arrested: Soall in Spain on June 17, Hazan in Spain on August 5 and Sheetrit in the UK on September 7. The United States has requested their extradition. All defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The threat posed by deepfakes to businesses continues to grow. According to a Gartner survey, four in ten CISOs experienced social engineering attempts involving deepfake phone calls over the past year, while 36 percent also encountered fake videos.
(Editorial Team)
