A Cuban exposed on Instagram the step-by-step mechanism of a scam that combines identity theft, artificial intelligence, and transfers via Zelle, in a video that documents how a group of criminals attempted to trick his uncle residing abroad into paying $4,500 for a car that never existed.
The story, published on Monday by the user "Amesito Te Quema," begins with a vehicle for sale that raised suspicions from the start; however, he decided to investigate what the sellers were offering. The scammers informed him that payment had to be made via Zelle, asked his nephew in Havana for his address, his location, and a photo of him in front of his house, under the pretext of "not getting lost." He sent the location and an image of his house where he wasn’t visible.
Faced with that refusal, the scammers resorted to another tactic: "They took a photo of my WhatsApp profile, snapped a picture with a phone—because you can't take a screenshot—and with a strange number, they used my WhatsApp photo, in terrible quality of course, and started messaging my uncle as if they were me, using a different number," the young man recounted.
Additionally, they used the photo of the house that I had sent them to, with the help of artificial intelligence, place the car for sale as if it had been delivered.
To prevent the real nephew from alerting his relative, the criminals bombarded him with calls from 10 different numbers simultaneously. "I started blocking them and they kept calling me," he described. He was only able to communicate with his uncle using a family member's phone to prevent him from making the money transfer.
His final warning was clear: "Don't make any deals unless it's via video call with the direct person. That money beforehand is worthless. When you leave the notary with your documents, then you pay the money."
This modality is not an isolated case. In June, a Cuban residing in the United States lost $6,000 while purchasing an electric tricycle for family members in Holguín; the scammers used artificial intelligence to insert the product into a photo of the home and included a known neighbor to lend credibility. In July, another victim nearly lost $1,600 in a solar panel purchase where the criminals used AI to clone the voice of her own mother to falsely confirm the delivery.
In August, a Cuban woman lost 1,900 dollars when criminals took control of a friend's WhatsApp and requested money for a supposed purchase. Just days before this video, a young Cuban reported that strangers have been impersonating her on social media for months, using her family photos to scam others, a practice colloquially known as “profiling.”
The pattern repeats: an attractive ad with a price below market value, a requirement for payment upfront via Zelle, a request for personal information from a family member in Cuba, the creation of false evidence using AI, and the isolation of the victim through account theft or incessant calls. Zelle, due to its nature as an almost instantaneous and irreversible transfer method, is the preferred choice of scammers to hinder any recovery of the funds.
Filed under: