The Thai prime minister "immediately recognized" the voice on the other end, which was used to threaten her. It was an attempted scam.
In a world where information flows faster and faster and schemes to deceive people move at the same speed, no one seems to escape scam attempts.
From the woman who was scammed into thinking she was dating Brad Pitt to the Chinese actor who fell into a human trafficking ring, there is also room for world leaders to be targets of scams.
One recent target was the Prime Minister of Thailand, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who received a call demanding money. On the other end, and with the help of an Artificial Intelligence system, was a familiar voice.
"The voice was very familiar and I recognized it immediately. First, they sent me an audio saying something like: 'How are you?'", she began by saying, explaining that the voice she heard had been produced to imitate another head of government.
The same number called Paetongtarn Shinawatra, but she did not answer. She was then left a voicemail: "They sent another voicemail asking for a donation, saying: '[Thailand] is the only country in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that has not yet made a donation.'" Shinawatra said she was taken aback "for a moment", but assured that she realized something was wrong. She said that "Artificial Intelligence was probably used" to imitate her voice. The head of government did not reveal who the fraudster responsible for this scheme 'stole' her voice from.
