BANGKOK—Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra almost fell victim to a phone scam using AI to impersonate a foreign leader’s voice, she said Wednesday.
The prime minister, the youngest daughter of telecoms billionaire and ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, said she received a message in a voice sounding identical to a well-known leader, without identifying the person.
“In the clip, he said he was looking forward to seeing me and working together,” she said.
She missed a call from the same number during the night, before a second voice message the next day aroused her suspicions.
“The voice said Thailand is the only ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] country which has not yet made a donation—when I heard that, I thought ‘this is not right,’” she said.
A text message asking for money to be sent to a bank account outside Thailand soon followed, confirming her doubts.
“I knew it for sure when I saw that,” she said.
Paetongtarn did not say when she received the messages.
So-called “call center scams” are common in Thailand, in which fraudsters impersonate police, government officials or bank staff—often using automated “robocalls’ to make the first contact.
Paetongtarn, 38, last week declared more than US$400 million in assets to Thailand’s anti-corruption commission.
Her father Thaksin, who once owned Manchester City football club, has a net worth of $2.1 billion, according to Forbes, making him the 10th-richest person in Thailand.
