Hong Kong real-time face-swap romance/investment scam ring

In October 2024 Hong Kong police announced the arrest of 27 members of a fraud syndicate operating from a Hung Hom building that had stolen about US$46M (HK$360M) from victims across Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore and India. Operators contacted targets on social media using AI-generated attractive profile photos, then deployed real-time deepfake face-swapping during video calls to transform their appearance and voice into convincing 'girlfriends,' building trust before luring victims into fake cryptocurrency investment platforms. Police-attributed figures, well corroborated across reporting, make it a documented example of consumer-grade real-time face-swap technology being industrialised for pig-butchering style romance-investment fraud.