Criminals armed with AI: data on cyber fraudsters in 2024

Deceiving citizens through fake SMS messages, calls from unknown people, swindling bank card data and stealing money has spread and now few people have not faced such attempts or fallen victim to cyber fraudsters themselves.

With the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a new type of deception has spread abroad and may soon appear in Azerbaijan: AI copies the voice of a close person, a mobile phone call is made to him, and the name and number of the ‘subscriber’ are displayed in the phone, and the swindler asks to send money urgently to solve the problem in the voice of a family member.   AI copies not only the voice, but also the manner of conversation of a relative or a friend.  To protect against fraud by means of AI it is suggested to ask questions to the ‘relative’, the answers to which criminals cannot know: the year of birth of a child, favourite dish, etc.

The most high-profile case was the deception by cyber-criminals of the father of the late flight attendant, hero of Azerbaijan Hokuma Aliyeva.  In January 2025, AZN 80,507 was stolen from her father's bank card - the insurance sum issued by AZAL to the family for the death of its employee.  The criminals were found the next day, they turned out to be citizens of Azerbaijan and were operating inside the country. 

In 2024, cyber criminals abroad stole AZN 22 million from Azerbaijanis in 16,804 criminal cases.  Through fake link-jumpers stole AZN 2 million 43,896 in 1027 cases last year. In 411 cases, AZN 1 million 196,786 was stolen from shopping websites after calling the buyer and asking about his card details. In 290 cases, criminals posed as bank employees and stole AZN 598,48 from citizens,’ the Interior Ministry said in its 2024 report.

Last year, there were also many crimes with the introduction of criminals into mobile phone data under the guise of helping to extract money from ATMs, by deceiving citizens in shopping websites, through stolen and lost bank cards, lotteries, gambling, contacts of citizens with unknown people in fake accounts, and so on.

Osman Gunduz, an expert in the field of İT-technology, suggests that banks should expand the possibilities for citizens to block bank card data, introduce stricter control rules, increase the time for the deceived to contact banks, use new mechanisms to protect banking information, and improve public education.