A retired lecturer from Edinburgh was conned out of £17,000 following a romance scam involving deepfake AI videos.
Nikki MacLeod sent thousands of pounds to a fictitious woman named Alla Morgan after being “completely convinced” by AI-generated deepfake videos, documents, and a fake bank account.
The 77-year-old came across ‘Alla’ – who claimed to work on an oil rig in the North Sea – in a chat group on Facebook. After they established an online relationship, she started receiving recorded video messages.
Nikki said she just wanted “someone to talk to” after the passing of her parents and her long-term partner left with their children during lockdown.
Speaking to Good Morning Britain on Tuesday, she said: “I had a whole series of upsets, I lost my partner, I lost my parents. My partner left in the middle of the lockdown with our two children.
“I guess I just wanted someone to talk to, I think, so I just started talking to people on Facebook, through various chatrooms.
“I was talking to one person who was called Alla Morgan who was on an oil rig on the North Sea, and then this particular person disappeared, and then miraculously on my Facebook feed, another Allan Morgan appeared, so I was very curious, and started asking them questions
“Then she said, ‘No, I work on a different oil rig, and the other Allan Morgan is fake’. My suspicions were already raised but we got on so well, she was a really good conversationalist.
“I spent millions of words talking to her on Facebook, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and every conceivable media platform you could imagine.
“Eventually, she sent me those videos to convince me that she was real, and I was completely convinced and fell even more in love with her.”
GMB via SuppliedAs the relationship progressed, Nikki was contacted by someone from the HR department of the company Alla supposedly worked for—named ‘SPM Offshore’—who asked for $2,500 so they could fly her to Scotland in a helicopter.
She said the documents, images and videos she was sent were enough to convince her to part with her cash.
“Eventually, she said she was going to come and visit me in Scotland, and I thought that’s a really lovely idea”, she added.
“But for her to visit me, she needed to take a helicopter from the oil rig to land at Edinburgh Airport.
“So I got put in touch with the HR department of the oil company, which was called SPM offshore. The HR department said you need to pay $2,500 for this helicopter flight, and Allan said, “Yes, just pay them. I’ll pay you back. I’ve got a $1,500,000 in my bank account.”
“So I did. I paid it and had to fill in all sorts of forms as they had faked documents that were very authentic-looking. I believed it.
“But then the company said, ‘You need to pay another $12,000 dollars to compensate for her being on holiday with you’, and at this point, I drew the line and said no, I’m not paying that, so she never arrived.”
GMB via SuppliedThe scam came to light when Alla claimed she would buy Nikki’s daughter a house in Aberdeen and that all she had to do was to go into her bank account, named ‘Terrafink Capital’.
Nikki added: “Eventually we got talking about my daughter and she wanted to buy a house up in Aberdeen, so Alla said ‘oh that’s easy I’ll just buy her a house. You just go into my bank account and take $65,000’.
“So I went into her bank. It was obviously fake. It’s called Terrafink Capital. Don’t go anywhere near it, but she said to just take the money and pop it into your account.
“I did that, and suddenly the bank account was frozen so I was getting emails asking me to unfreeze the account, and make payments to do so.
“Which is when all this money started to leak out of my bank account.
“When I spoke to the bank, they told me I’d been scammed. I got £7,000 back, but because I paid most through Paypal, I couldn’t get most of it back.”
The images and video sent to Nikki were created using AI technology, and there is no way of knowing where the image of the woman – Alla Morgan – came from.
It could have been made using a real person’s face with no connection to the scammers and no idea that their identity was used.
STV News understands that a member of the public has claimed to recognise ‘Alla Morgan’, and has confirmed she is a real person.
GMB via SuppliedPolice Scotland confirmed they are investigating the incident after the fraud was reported in October.
A spokesperson said: “An investigation is under way after police received a report a woman was the victim of an online financial fraud. The incident was reported to police on Saturday, October 13, 2024. Enquiries are ongoing.
“We would ask people to be vigilant and encourage anyone who believes they may have been victim to fraud or a scam to contact police on 101.”
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