Hewlett-Woodmere schools address AI-powered kidnapping scam calls

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In a time when information can be faked very easily and artificial intelligence can mimic the human voice, there has been a rise in scam phone calls, where unknown callers, sometimes using AI, falsely claim to have kidnapped a child and demand a ransom.

To address the growing problem and offer parents weapons in this battle, Michael Losco, the director of health, safety and security for the Hewlett-Woodmere school district and Charlie Sollin, a lieutenant with the Nassau County Police Department’s 4th precinct, spoke at Woodmere Middle School on Jan. 14.

Scammers often conduct extensive research on their targets before making a call, aiming to create as real of a scenario as possible. They gather personal details such as home addresses, school schedules, social media posts and even voicemail recordings.

Liraz Nizai, a school district resident, shared her experience dealing with a scam call.

“I got a phone call from a very aggressive man, right around the time my daughter goes to lunch,” she said. “He claimed to have taken her from outside the high school and threatened me, demanding money and warning me not to call anyone. I told him I was going to the bank, but instead, I went to the school for help. While I was talking to security, my daughter’s best friend walked by and said she was at school eating lunch. She called her, and I heard her voice, which finally calmed me down.”

Nizai said she had originally thought it was a scam, but thought she heard her daughters voice in the background during the call. Losco, said this is often where AI can come into play.

“She heard crying in the background that sounded like her daughter’s voice,” Losco said. There’s a very real chance it was artificial intelligence mimicking her daughter.. These hackers will do what we call ‘spoofing,’ a method where scammers manipulate phones to imitate real contacts or numbers.”

Losco, a former member of the New York City Police Department, said that 99.9 percent of the kidnapping calls he would receive are scam calls. Losco added that the asking price from the scammers would be his biggest tell on if it was a scam or not, because most of the time, these scammers are only trying to make a quick few thousand dollars off someone and move on.

Charlie Sollin has also dealt with many of these situations before, as a member of the Problem-Oriented Policing Unit, and shared how his team works to help Nassau County put an end to these situations.

“There are three common ways that they ask for the money, asking for a check, gift cards, or the most common way we make arrests, sending someone to the location to pick up the money,” Sollin said. “We love when you guys call us for help, because if we can make an arrest on the middle man, who often doesn’t even know what he’s a part of, the callers will lose interest in that area and stop calling residents.”

Both Losco and Sollin said that should anyone receive such a call, they should call the police.