AI $18 Million Lottery Scam
INTRODUCTION
In a 2025 statistics roundup, about 1 in 10 adults globally has experienced an AI voice scam, and 77% of those experienced a financial loss.1 Although fraudsters initially began using AI-driven bots toward the end of last year, both the technological improvements and accessibility surged in 2025. Leading speech-recognition models, such as OpenAI’s Whisper, report error rates as low as 3%, indicating they correctly transcribe about 97% of words.2
One study published in PLoS One found that when people hear human voices alongside AI-generated versions of the same voices, they are unable to reliably distinguish between the real and synthetic audio.3 According to the State of Voice AI 2025: The Rise of Enterprise Voice AI Agents, about 15% of organizations are already actively developing voice AI agents in 2025, and nearly all of them (98%) expect to deploy these agents into production within the next year (see chart).4
During HUMINT operations, we observed fraudsters using a hybrid approach- AI to efficiently place calls and screen for more compliant victims before transferring them to a live operator to finish the scam. This allows them to target more victims while using fewer resources. We observed that the AI bot was able to dynamically and seamlessly adapt to our conversation.
AI LOTTERY SCAM
We have recently received a call from the office of Mega Millions stating that we have won a Mega Millions Lottery of over eighteen million dollars. It became evident that the caller was an AI bot, evidenced by a discrete typing sound, similar to IVR/automated systems5, to mask the slight speech processing delay. It also appeared that the AI bot may have been giving script instructions as the prompt in order to lure the recipient into “claiming” their award.
The call began with the recipient speaking with “Micheal Richards” from the Mega Millions office. Michael states that they have won the prize of eighteen million dollars, an exclusive lifetime membership of two thousand dollars weekly check, the choice to pick either a 2025 Ford Bronco or Mercedez-Benz, and a VIP status membership to win other prizes. Micheal then proceeds to ask the recipient what they think of all of these. Surprisingly, the AI bot dynamically responds to what the recipients say and comments on their response. For example, if the recipient states which of the cars they prefer, the bot will then respond back approving their choice.
CLAIMING THE ‘LOTTERY’
Michael follows up by explaining that the recipient was chosen from a pool of millions registered participants and asks whether they have received any notification regarding the prize. Once the recipient states whether they have received any notice about the prize, Michael then provides a personalized claim code that is necessary to give to an agent once the call is transferred to the claims departments. The recipient asks for the claim code to be repeated slowly, and the AI bot understands the request and repeats the code at a slower pace.
Click here to listen to the recording on YouTube
In order to claim the prize the recipient must provide the code to an agent at the claims department and pay a refundable registration fee of two thousand five hundred dollars. The call is then transferred from the AI bot to a live operator, who requests the victim’s claim code and payment information. Once this fee is covered the prize can be given to the recipient through a public celebration or a private experience. In reality the grand prize and the refundable registration fee is all a hoax
RECOMMEDNATIONS
- Be alert to sudden changes in voice, pacing, or conversation style, which may indicate a call being transferred from a bot to a live scammer.
- Speech-processing delays can make AI responses seem slightly slower than a human’s, and the delay may be noticeable. To mask this, an intentional sound, like typing, can be added to make the pause feel more natural.
- Verify if a number is associated with scams by searching it on scam reporting sites. We reported this to the FTC.
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Read More1https://tech-adv.com/blog/ai-cyber-attack-statistics/?utm_source=chatgpt.com#elementor-toc__heading-anchor-6
2https://whisperui.com/blog/whisperai
3https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/ai-voices-are-now-indistinguishable-from-real-human-voices
4https://cx-ex.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/2025-State-of-Voice-AI-Report-Deepgram.pdf
5https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/99623/why-do-some-automated-phone-systems-use-a-typing-sound-effect?