New Voice, Who Dis?

Apparently, sounding like the boss is just as good as being the boss.

Have a wild tale that needs to be heard? Fill out the form, and you might just hear your story featured on our “Scam, Scam” segment!

Music by DJ Jayo.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I want my money.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

This is Unnigerian Prince, the podcast where we talk about scams from everywhere else. Good morning, Noms. Good morning, Ugo. How's your week been, girl?

SPEAKER_00 0:27

You know, it's been a good week, but honestly, my job is back in the office five days a week. And it has actually been a lot. I do not know how we did this six, seven years ago because I'm like, I physically cannot do it. They're like, you need to be here at nine in the morning. And I'm like, but will I?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Like, this is really giving like false sentiment. Let me go home. Leave me alone.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

And don't get me wrong, like, I love what I do, but I am not a morning person, so it has been a struggle.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Honestly, my heart goes out to you. Like, I cannot imagine every day of the week having somewhere to be. That it's that is crazy. Monday through Friday. But how has your week been?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

I know you've been on the road quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Yes, I was in London this week. I had the week from hell. Like my flight to London was delayed for six hours because of a mechanical failure. My fiance that was coming from Cape Town got to London before I did from Cape Town, which is insane. That is crazy because Cape Town is extremely south. It was actually criminal behavior from American Airlines. Yeah. On the way back, same thing, mechanical failure. Had to take an entirely different plane.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

What? I mean, I'm I'm glad that it was a safe flight. But what? Like they've been doing this too long not to have it downpacked packed. Like, get that metal bird up in the air.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Not to have it down packed. It's a communal plane, London to New York. It's basically like taking the subway or something. Like it is not that complicated, says the person who does not have any clue how planes work, but you know what I mean. My body just like broke down in the course of course of all that. I got sick. So Wednesday, I was in the office coughing, sneezing. Like it was tragic, truly. Like I could see everybody like honey, please go home.

unknown 2:31

Please go.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry. Oh, it was so bad. Thursday, um, I was like completely paralyzed. Like, did not get up one time on Thursday. Friday, I was struggling my way through it. And then this morning, it's like on the third day I rose again. I was like, all right, let's jump right in. I am just fine. But I have thank you to the makers of NyQu and DayQuil because if you hear me sniffing a little bit, that's what's going on. But I'm I'm almost good as new. Anyway, thank you for asking. I think we just have to roll with it. Where are we today, girl?

SPEAKER_00 3:11

So today's story impacts multiple countries. But I'm going to clue you into where things actually kick off. So we are in Asia again, and this place is technically not a country. That's different. Not a country. Is it like a territory? Not necessarily, but if I say what it actually is, you'll know it. But it's essentially an island that has the most number of skyscrapers in the world, and it was formerly under British colonial rule.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Oh, Hong Kong. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

What the hell are the British doing over there? They were legitimately always very far from home. Alright, let's get into the story for this week. So, Noms, imagine you're working at a bank, and I know you don't have to imagine too hard. And your manager, the person you speak with every day, calls you and says, We're acquiring a company. This is confidential. I need you to move the funds immediately. What does your instinct tell you to do? Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

That's a tricky one. I feel like at my particular firmware, my instincts are like, hang on. Because there's so many moving parts to it, I'm not just gonna like up and transfer it. I'm gonna need to see maybe something in writing, some kind of like official approval. But if my manager calls me and I hear his voice, I feel like there would be some trust, right? Like, I have to get going with this in some way.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Exactly. So depending on, let's say, like your training or the size of your institution, you might have some pause, right? But let's say that you're in a smaller firm or you're on a smaller team, there's just not as much oversight. So you might just end up moving forward. But if it is, let's say, like a smaller firm, you may not necessarily question your boss, right? When they actually sound like your boss. You know, you might just end up wiring the money. Right, yeah. Well, in the story that I have for you today, an employee received a call from the director of the company with that exact request. And without hesitation, he wired 35 million United States dollars.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

But there was just one problem. The director never actually made the call.

unknown 5:45

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Uh god, this feels like one of those like ghost stories. Like the hair on the back of my neck is standing up.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Gives me the heavy cheapies. Honestly, it would probably be more fun if it was an actual ghost story. But instead of Casper, the deceptive ghost, we have AI, we have deep fates, and we have a voice that sounded real enough to move $35 million.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Girl, give me the ghost. I want the ghosts. Because AI is actually getting out of hand. Like, granny is getting oh, I fall for those AI videos like 50% of the time. Like, oh, especially when it's just like a you know, a girl walking down the street. If she doesn't visibly have like 17 fingers or three eyes, like I'm like, oh, look at her. I'm granny, I'm auntie.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

No, you're absolutely right. Like the technology is progressing so rapidly. Like, and the story that I'm telling you today happened back in 2020. That's crazy. Could you imagine how good it is now? Oh exactly, exactly. Honestly, it's so strange because it feels like the era that we're in is an era where hearing is believing might just be a dangerous idea. So let's start at the beginning. In January 2020, before the world shut down in Hong Kong, when a branch manager for a large Japanese company receives a phone call. The court documents actually don't name him or the company for the sake of anonymity, but we know that this is someone who handles large sums of money. He knows protocol, he's not just some rookie. For the sake of this episode, we will simply refer to him as the manager. So the manager is at his desk and the phone rings. On the other end of the line is the director of the company, aka his boss, phoning in from headquarters. In fact, the tone, the cadence, the slight accent all pointed to his boss. The director calls with good news. He says, We're about to make a huge acquisition. It's exciting, it's great for the company, but it's extremely confidential.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

You know what? I feel like that's such a clever way to do the little social engineering because it makes the victim feel important, right? This is highly confidential. He's being brought into the inner circle. And the victim, the branch manager guy, he's like in a positive, helpful frame of mind. He wants to be part of the win. He wants to get the confidential thing done quickly and maybe it'll help him get promoted or whatsoever. How clever. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Exactly. And so what we have is a scenario where the manager drops his defenses. The voice on the other end then tells him that in order to handle this, he will need to work with a lawyer named Martin Zellner. And so is Martin a real person? Of course not. You know what I'm saying? That was a very stupid question. Let me keep quiet. Here's where the scammers really locked in. They knew that a $35 million request was a big ask, even with a deep faked voice. So they used what's called multi-channel reinforcement. Essentially, they swarmed the branch manager. So right after the call ends, or maybe even during it, I'm not sure, an email lands in the manager's inbox from the director's account, confirming everything they had just talked about. Then a few minutes later, a new email arrives from Martin Zellner, the lawyer, introducing himself and attaching the wiring instructions.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

I see. So it's like this bubble of legitimacy they're trying to create, right? The email makes the voice seem legit, vice versa. And then I'm assuming like this is all being spoofed, right? So the phone numbers, the call that the branch manager received is spoofed like the director's number, the email spoofed like the director's email. Girl, I don't want to say at my fault for this one.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

No, no, they literally swarmed him because you have the phone call for authority, you have the email for documentation, and the lawyer for some semblance of procedural legitimacy. So the scammers were trying to immediately alleviate whatever doubt he may have had in his mind, right? And so believing the request was legitimate, the manager started working with Zauner to move the funds.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

I feel so bad for this guy. I'm literally like sinking into my chair. This is a terrible, terrible story.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

I know, I know. And he didn't move it in one $35 million chunk. He followed instructions and initiated a series of large transfers over several days. First transfer goes out, no alarms. Second transfer, still normal. By the time the final transfer cleared, the total hit $35 million. And to him, it looked like, you know, standard business traffic for a high-stakes acquisition. But behind the scenes, the scammers were doing something very deliberate. They were breaking the money up and rotting it through different accounts in multiple countries. And apparently, this is a common tactic to avoid triggering red flags. So if you send one massive payment, financial authorities are gonna start asking questions. But if you break it up, it starts to blend in more. At least part of the trail apparently led through accounts in the UAE, and from there, some of the money touched US banks. And investigators actually later found two specific transfers that landed in centennial bank accounts here in the US that totaled about $400,000.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Wow. Like the layering thing that they were doing, like moving it around to make it like hard to find. That is, these are professionals. Was anyone ever convicted for the kiss? Car, you know, the conviction is my favorite part.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

No, it is my favorite part too, because you must be in the slammer. You cannot walk among us. You will do jail time.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

We are waiting for you. You will go to jail.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Okay, and honestly, Noms, like to your point earlier, like, oh my goodness, this poor employee, this poor guy, like, oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. But here is what we do know so far. Here is what we do know for sure, right? In court filings, Dubai authorities actually did reference a network of at least 17 individuals who they believed to be, you know, involved in the routing and the dispersing of the stolen funds. And I think that that tells us that this isn't a lone actor, right? This was very much so an organized operation. We only saw a few people involved, Martin Seller and the company director, but there were a lot of you know players in this whole thing. Now, as for whether that, you know, or those specific 17 individuals were convicted in connection with this exact $35 million transfer, I think that that part is a lot less clear from you know what we've seen.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

So we know there's a network of about 17 people, or at least 17 people, but we don't know if they're locked up yet because there is sort of no clean, neat courtroom sort of ending.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Yes, that's exactly right. And I do want to caveat here and say that the only reason that we actually know about this case is because of a court filing that Dubai authorities made. That's the only reason that this became public. And so, yeah, to your point just now, there's not sort of like a neat courtroom ending to this, right? What we know is that Dubai authorities have aggressively prosecuted cross-border financial crimes involving voice cloning and executives being impersonated in recent years, right? In fact, in 2025, there were major prosecutions in Dubai involving sophisticated international networks using voice cloning technology to authorize fraudulent transfers. So while we can't definitively say that this particular $35 million case was part of the broader prosecution, I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Yeah. So what I'm hearing is so the UAE ends up sort of leading the probe on this because they were already investigating the cross-border financial crimes involving voice cloning technologies. I'm assuming they must have had some kind of broader network of other smaller crimes that they picked up during their probe. But we also believe that this Hong Kong case was wrapped up in that too.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yes, that is what my understanding is.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Wow. Yeah, I'm actually not surprised. I'm not surprised. Can we talk a bit? What I'm fascinated by though is the tech itself because the deep fake stuff is here right now. It freaks me out, Ugo. Like AI voice cloning is not something in like, I don't know, Dune or some other sci-fi concept. It can literally happen to anybody. It's here to stay.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Absolutely. The criminals use deep voice tech or an AI voice simulation to clone the speech of the company director. And I just want to make it clear that many companies around the world are increasingly working on AI voice cloning technologies for a variety of different use cases that simply aren't always nefarious. And I think that that's the scariest part for me. It's the fact that this technology is becoming more accessible and cheaper, which I think on the surface is a good thing, but in the hands of bad actors, this is what you have, right? But I'm also nervous about the fact that the training data, it's us, right? It's our voices.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Absolutely. It makes me want to scrub my digital presence so bad. Like I am not around. I've also seen some of this show up a little bit in romance scams where people think they are in love with a celebrity. But because the celebrity's voice is so commonly about, the scammers can actually clone the celebrity's voice to basically say to the person, Oh, I love you, Ugo. Do you love me back, Ugo? But it's just a clone voice of like George Clooney or something.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Do you know those scams always get me because yes, the person is the victim. But if I don't know, if who who Theo James was now in my DMs talking about I love you, Google, send me all of you dollar.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Like why are you in my inbox asking for $10,000? It should be the other way around. No, literally, these Hollywood scams, these celebrity scams, they're so good because there's so much data of them, right? Like to hold up pictures and photos and cloning and all of that. You know, to your point, it's very easy to train that to use that stuff for unsuspecting people. You have some poor grandmother in Florida that genuinely thinks Judge Clooney is in love with her, and it's quite petrifying.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

You're right, you're absolutely right. And the Florida state example is so satisfying. They're always in Florida for some reason. It's it's in a retirement home somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Oh, it makes it feel so bad, honestly. Girl, and we haven't even talked about those grandparent scams where someone will call someone's grandma pretending to be the grandkid, right? And they'd be like, Oh, grandma, it's me. I'm in jail, and I need you to wire the bill money. And it sounds exactly like the grandchild.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

But you're absolutely right. Like, it's not these large corporate heists, right? We're starting to see the tech trickle down to these more everyday situations. And because it's getting cheaper, I think we're gonna see the volume honestly really just explode.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like as someone in finance and in banking, we do get a lot of trainings about this actually, where it's making sure that you have an appropriate reaction. I do work in a large bank, so it's a little bit different compared to if you're in a smaller shop. But the story is interesting to me, largely for the psychology that might be at play here as well. Like, what do you think about that part?

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Well, I'm not a trained psychologist on the matter, and if if I was, a lot of people will be in trouble. I say, I think people will be in trouble if I was a lawyer because a lot of you will be sued. Prosecuted. Exactly. We will be prosecuted. Absolutely. My biggest mistake in life is not going to law school and working at the FTC. But what I did learn in preparing for this episode is that this is apparently an upgrade on the typical CEO company executive fraud that we see. The classic CEO fraud apparently relies on creating a fake sense of urgency to short circuit your brain, right? So, for example, why are this amount of money now or the deal is off? The goal is to make you act before you're able to think. And in this case, adding the voice actually removes the need for calm reflection, which is what a lot of cybersecurity trainings teach, right? Take a breath and time to think things through. But why would you need to do that if you just spoke to your boss? Right? The employee hears his manager's voice and is just like, okay, check, no further need to verify.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Absolutely. And I think there's two things at play too, right? The first being in finance, speed is rewarded, right? Getting things done quickly, definitely accurately, don't get me wrong, but quickly, um, speedily is considered a virtue, frankly. And I feel like there's probably some social pressure, societal norms around this conversation. You don't just question your boss like that, right? You're not gonna be like, get out of here, don't tell me to transfer the money.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Absolutely. That that speed point on the finance aspect is such a good one because I hadn't considered it, but it's like, yeah, there is a sense of urgency in the finance and banking world. And yes, to your point on social pressure. And I even think that in some East Asian companies in particular operating, you know, in the region, things are very hierarchical, right? So the chances to question your boss are even less. It's very different from here in the US, where we're encouraged to ask questions, right? To be curious. And I mean, like, just imagine being on the phone with the CEO or senior vice president of your company, and you're like, hey, I know I'm on the phone with you, but can you prove you are who you say you are? Like you sound a bit crazy, you know? Right. Yeah. So honestly, like in my view, the employee in Hong Kong didn't fail because he was dumb. I think that he failed because every social and biological cue was manipulated perfectly.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Yeah, I think that's super, super fair. What do you think people should take away from this episode?

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Okay. So this whole episode has made me think this concept of zero trust. In cybersecurity, it means that you never trust a device, even if it's on your network. Now, I honestly think. We have to apply that to people sometimes, right? So, zero trust for all communication, right? You cannot just trust a voice by default on the phone, especially when they're asking for things like you know financial information or passwords or so on, right? Even if you recognize the voice.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

I hear you, but that just seems crazy. It's such a fundamental break in how we relate to one another. Like, if I can't trust that it's you I'm talking to Ugo, right? Like, who am I on this podcast with? Is it AI? I don't know. Like, how do we even function?

SPEAKER_00 22:37

I know, I know. It's a crazy concept to apply to humans. I agree. But I think that there is a pretty low-tech solution. So the first is as we always say, as we've been saying for these past few episodes, is to hang up the phone. Hang up. Literally hang up the phone. Cut the line. And then just tell the person that you will call them back at their known number.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

And honestly, if it feels like a scammer, just hang up. Don't even say anything. Then call them back. They don't need the heads up.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Absolutely. Absolutely. And second, consider having a safe word or challenge question for your family or for your business that you will never write down or text. Right? So if a manager or someone says we have to wire $5,000 right now, all you have to say is, okay, no problem. What's the code for the month? If the scammer doesn't know, you do what? You hang up the phone. We should have named this podcast Hang Up the Phone. You know, I've honestly been trying to get my siblings to do this, but they think that I'm overreacting. But this might just be on brand for me because I also have a in case I go missing folder. But I literally think that we should do this, right? Look at look at where we are. Like, look at all this evidence, right? Sometimes the analog solution is the best option.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Honestly, I I hear you because I genuinely think people need to listen to you. And Ugo, we need to come up with our like IK chim, listen to Ugo, please, because I don't want to hear anything about how someone came and took an enormous sum of money. And if you don't mind your money going missing, I am planning a wedding. So you feel free to send it to me. I have use for it. Don't give it to a stranger, give it to me.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Or me or me, but also like just very quickly, I think to your grandma example about like grandma, I'm in jail. I think you it's also important that you know the person a bit too. Because if you know someone calls you, noms saying that, pretending to be me, and they're like, Oh, Ugo was in jail in Cancun because she was doing X, Y, and Z. I will not be in jail in Cancun. There's no way I'm going to be in jail in Cancun.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Okay, okay, but what if you are though? Like you would never be in jail in Cancun, but what if you are? But maybe I deserved it and leave me there. You know what? Now I would say give her two days of being in the jail. Because then they'll be like, oh, let's urgently release her. You know, send us two million so we can release her tomorrow. So, what is the price if we release her in two days? This is think about what she did.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Alright, but it is, is I feel like we wrap this up on a sad note of being skeptical, right? But I do think that this kind of skepticism should apply in these instances because it's either that or explaining to the board where 35 million dollars went. Scam scam. Scam scam.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Girl, okay. This is a story from you know, ironically enough, 2020 as well. And this is like, you know, 2019 into 2020. And you know me, one of my favorite places in the world is the coast of Kenya, which is you know you are always parked there. I am a Kenyan doll through and through, just like I am Filipino and sometimes Chinese. It just depends on the day, guys. I don't know. I remember so one of my darling friends, Beads, uh, told me the story about a group of people that she knew, and basically, these guys, this group of three Nigerian guys, had gone to Kenya, Khafi, which is on the coast of Kenya, for New Year's. Now you have to understand, Khalifi is a big deal over New Year's, it's super busy, everybody goes there because there's a massive New Year's festival, and so these three Nigerian guys were going there to like catch a vibe, you know, happy new year, you know, but with the Bacardia, and they were trying to have a good time.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

I respect it.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

You know, that's what life is about. Literally, they book an Airbnb and they took a flight from Lagos to Nairobi, and then you take a flight from Nairobi to you know, somewhere on the coast, and then you drive down to Kalifi. Okay, so they did that, and you know, when they are leaving Nigeria, they sort of told the host, Oh, you know, we're on our way, you know, you're keeping some kind of warm touch sort of communication with your host. So they did that in Lagos, everything was fine. They do that in Nairobi, everything is fine. And then when they land in Khalifi, they're not the guy is not really responding, right? Like he's just very quiet, he's not being responsive, but it's really late, it's like midnight.

unknown 27:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

So they're like, okay, maybe there's just a lockbox there when we get there. You know how Airbnbs are sometimes, like, there's just a code or something, and you can figure it out. There's a key under the mat or something.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

They get there, and the place that they get to that was said was the place is not a place that's looking like the place that they believed was the place. Oh my god, okay. Now, these are three guys in a foreign country, right? And they just they're calling the guy, they're messaging the guy, everything trying to reach the guy, completely unresponsive. It's midnight, and they're like, you know what, let's just find a place to sleep, and then we'll sort this out in the morning. Maybe the guy fell asleep, maybe we have the wrong address. And for those who don't know, it's not like landing in like New York City and the city is alive. Like you're in a coastal village, basically. So you're not gonna be, you know, walking around with all your luggage and da-da-da. It's just not the best thing to do. So, so they try to find somewhere, except it is about to be New Year's in Khalifi, everything's booked out. Oh, so they get a hotel room, they get this ultra expensive hotel room, three of them are in the hotel room, and they're like, we'll figure it out in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

In the morning, tell me why there's no Airbnb host. No, there's no Airbnb host, it's gone. There's no place for them to go. It was diabolical. There's no place for them to go to, basically, and they just have to stay in this hotel room. They actually, I think, had to move to another one because that one was booked for that period. Move to another one. It's three grown men in one hotel room because again, the price of everything has gone up, right? So everything's super expensive. They've already spent the money to be in the three-bedroom, beautiful, sort of apartment style, you know, a place you can, you know, catch a vibe in. They have nothing like that, they cannot replace it. Airbnb man is nowhere to be found. Airbnb is unhelpful in getting this matter resolved. Airbnb said, I don't I don't know you. Who are you? Why are you why are you contacting me? And everywhere else is like way too expensive or way too booked up. So they have to stay in this one bedroom. And I remember thinking to myself, how do three grown men share one hotel room? Do you just rotate? Do you do two in a bed and then one comes up? Do you like cast lots? Like, how do you make this away? I think so.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Someone folds shirts, put it, puts it on a full.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Wow. Roll up the end of the boxers and just put your head there. And then now you can't catch the kind of vibe you wanted to because now you've been scammed. How do you enter your new year like that? Do you go out for New Year's and then come back and shit this morning?

SPEAKER_00 30:30

You go to the house of the Lord. Like you actually have to ring in the new year in church.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

And you say to God, I don't know where I went wrong, but me and you have to fix our issues.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Oh my goodness. No, this would actually send me over the edge. Like I know I would have to book an early ticket back home. Could you imagine?

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Are you coming here for like a brand new year? You're trying to catch a vibe, and it's just sometimes your enemies just prosper, your enemies just succeed, and you just have to hit them back harder next time. But that is the first successful scam scam we've done on the show. Oh, my Nigerian brothers, you're the Nigerian brothers.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Thank you for joining us today. If you have a local scam from anywhere in the world that happened to you, your parents, your in-laws, or even that girl at work that you really don't like, you know the one. Whether the scam was just an attempt or if it was successful, we will love to hear about it and maybe even read it out loud in the segment. Please send it to us at info at unnigerianprints.com. See you next time in another country.