Incident 937: Bolivian Criminal Network Allegedly Used Deepfake of Education Minister to Defraud at Least 19 Victims in Employment Scam

Description: A Bolivian criminal network allegedly used AI-generated deepfake audio of Education Minister Omar Véliz Ramos to impersonate him in phone calls, defrauding at least 19 victims in a fake job scheme. Scammers reportedly lured applicants via social media, used cloned voices for credibility, and demanded payment via QR codes. Authorities uncovered the scheme, seizing devices and arresting multiple suspects, including one orchestrating the fraud from prison. Losses reportedly exceed $720,000 USD.

Editor Notes: An unnamed official with the Servicio Departamental de Salud (SEDES) Potosí was also reportedly deepfaked in this scam, but most details on the reporting center on the Minister of Education. The incident date of 2/10/2025 marks early reporting on the incident; the scam was likely operating throughout January and early February of 2025.

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Entities

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Alleged: Unknown deepfake technology developer and Unknown voice cloning technology developer developed an AI system deployed by scammers , Fraudsters , Scammers impersonating Omar Véliz Ramos , Alfredo Ch. S. , Vilma C.C. , Luis G.C. , Jackelin A.M. and Mariana A.S., which harmed Omar Véliz Ramos , Ministry of Education of Bolivia , At least 19 Bolivian citizens seeking employment , General public of Bolivia and Unnamed Servicio Departamental de Salud (SEDES) Potosí official.

Alleged implicated AI systems: Unknown deepfake app , Unknown voice cloning technology , WhatsApp , Facebook , TikTok and Various mobile banking apps

Incident Stats

Incident ID

937

Report Count

Incident Date

2025-02-10

Editors

Daniel Atherton

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Criminal organization defrauded more than Bs 5 million with the sale of items in Education

hoybolivia.com

Criminal organization that used the voice of the Minister of Education to defraud is dismantled

eldeber.com.bo

Gang that cloned the voice of Minister Veliz to defraud is dismantled

la-razon.com

Another case of fraud comes to light, now the criminals used the name of the director of the Sedes de Potosí to ask for money

eju.tv

hoybolivia.com · 2025

AI Translated

With the help of Artificial Intelligence to clone the voice of the Minister of Education, Omar Véliz, and from prison, a criminal organization deceived some 19 people with the sale of items and accumulated more than Bs 5 million in their il…

eldeber.com.bo · 2025

AI Translated

The Vice Minister of Internal Affairs, Jhonny Aguilera, confirmed that a criminal organization was dismantled that, with artificial intelligence, used the voice of the Minister of Education to defraud. The criminals operated from the San Ro…

la-razon.com · 2025

AI Translated

The Police dismantled a criminal gang that, with artificial intelligence, cloned the voice of the Minister of Education, Omar Veliz, to defraud some 19 people with the sale of items, reported this Monday the Vice-Minister of Internal Affair…

eju.tv · 2025

AI Translated

After the case of fraud in which fake audios attributed to a minister were used to collect money in exchange for jobs came to light, a similar complaint has now come to light in which the criminals used the name of an official of the Depart…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.