The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI announced an indictment on Monday, November 9, charging three men over a scheme in which AI was used to impersonate executives and law-firm attorneys on calls, tricking employees into wiring money. Prosecutors put total losses at $129 million.
Soall, Hazan and Sheetrit Face Seven Counts Each
The defendants are Jacob Soall, 41, Sharon Hazan, 54, and Guy Sheetrit, 42. Each faces seven counts: wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. The fraud counts carry penalties of up to 20 years. Hazan has a 2008 bank-fraud conviction.
The scheme ran from 2024 to 2026. According to the charges, the defendants used AI to impersonate company executives and attorneys at law firms on phone calls, then directed staff to send wire transfers.
How the AI Impersonation Calls Directed Wire Transfers
The method relied on convincing staff that a request came from a senior figure or a legal representative. By using AI to imitate those voices, the group could issue payment instructions that appeared to carry executive or legal authority. Employees who received the calls acted on the instructions and sent the money.
Hospitals, a Rhode Island Bank and a UK Fintech Among Victims
Prosecutors identified specific losses. Two U.S. hospital systems lost $7.8 million combined. A Rhode Island bank lost $2.7 million. A UK fintech lost $11.6 million, and a Florida pet food maker lost $5.2 million. These named cases account for part of the $129 million total; the reporting does not itemize the remainder.
The mix of victims spans healthcare, banking, financial technology and food manufacturing, which indicates the group did not confine itself to a single sector.
Crypto Conversion and Accounts Across Nine Countries
The stolen money was converted to cryptocurrency and spread across accounts in the United States, Spain, Portugal, Greece, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Austria, Slovakia and China. Moving funds through that many jurisdictions complicates recovery, since each transfer places the money under a different legal regime.
Prosecution Under Way for a Case Built on Voice Impersonation
The case is in the prosecution stage, and arrests were reported alongside the indictment. The charges are allegations until proven in court.
The case is notable for the central role of AI-generated impersonation in a financial fraud of this size. Business email compromise, in which fraudsters pose as executives to redirect payments, has long been a costly category of cybercrime. The indictment describes a version in which the impersonation happens on live calls and extends to attorneys, adding a layer of apparent legitimacy that a plain email request lacks.
The reporting does not say how the defendants obtained the voice samples used for the impersonations, how they selected their targets or how much of the $129 million investigators have been able to trace or recover. Those details will likely emerge as the case moves through the courts. For now, the indictment sets out the loss figures, the countries where funds landed and the potential sentences for each defendant.
Hospital and Bank Losses Within the $129 Million Total
The named victims show the range of loss sizes. The UK fintech’s $11.6 million is the largest of the four individually reported amounts, followed by the two hospital systems’ combined $7.8 million, the Florida pet food maker’s $5.2 million and the Rhode Island bank’s $2.7 million. Those four figures sum to $27.3 million, so the majority of the $129 million total involves victims the reporting does not name. The charging document’s loss total therefore reaches well beyond the examples made public so far.
Prosecutors, working with the FBI, brought the charges as a group indictment, and each defendant faces the same seven counts. The scale of the alleged scheme, which ran across roughly two years and drew in healthcare, finance and manufacturing victims, is reflected in the indictment’s $129 million figure.
