---
title: SDNY charges three men with using AI voice and video deepfakes of CEOs and attorneys to steal about $129 million from companies worldwide | ctxsec
url: https://ctxsec.com/items/doj-sdny-ai-ceo-attorney-impersonation-fraud-129m
description: "The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced charges against Jacob Soall, 41, Sharon Hazan, 54, and Guy Sheetrit, 42, for a scheme that used AI to impersonate corporate executives and law-firm attorneys so employees would wire money. Prosecutors say the group targeted thousands of companies over more than a year and a half, including hospital systems, a Rhode Island bank, a UK fintech, a Massachusetts mutual fund and a Florida pet-food company, and moved stolen funds into cryptocurrency. Arrests ran June\u2013September 2026. Each defendant faces wire-fraud, aggravated identity-theft and money-laundering counts; SDNY framed the case around misuse of \"super intelligence\" technology."
status: "official (U.S. Attorney SDNY press release / indictment, Nov 5); AP summary of the charging papers"
published: 2026-11-05
---

> The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced charges against Jacob Soall, 41, Sharon Hazan, 54, and Guy Sheetrit, 42, for a scheme that used AI to impersonate corporate executives and law-firm attorneys so employees would wire money. Prosecutors say the group targeted thousands of companies over more than a year and a half, including hospital systems, a Rhode Island bank, a UK fintech, a Massachusetts mutual fund and a Florida pet-food company, and moved stolen funds into cryptocurrency. Arrests ran June–September 2026. Each defendant faces wire-fraud, aggravated identity-theft and money-laundering counts; SDNY framed the case around misuse of "super intelligence" technology.

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official (U.S. Attorney SDNY press release / indictment, Nov 5); AP summary of the charging papers

2026-11-05

### SDNY charges three men with using AI voice and video deepfakes of CEOs and attorneys to steal about $129 million from companies worldwide

- **How it worked (per charging papers / AP):** email claiming to be from the CEO asking for help with a confidential transaction; then a phone or video call where the defendants used AI to mimic the CEO's voice and sometimes image; then a handoff to an "attorney" at a major firm who was also an impersonator directing large wires abroad.
- **Defendants:** Soall (nicknamed "Rocky Balboa" in reporting) mainly played UK attorneys and kept a handwritten "Lawyer Call" script; Hazan ("Superman Cash") has a prior 2008 NY bank-fraud conspiracy conviction; Sheetrit ("Fat Boy"). They allegedly sat in Spain, the UK, Israel and the UAE.
- **Why it matters for security teams:** this is classic BEC with a deepfake upgrade. Out-of-band verification on any CEO/GC wire request, dual control for high-value transfers, and skepticism of unexpected video calls that demand secrecy still beat tooling alone.

Sources: [U.S. Attorney SDNY: Three foreign nationals arrested and charged with scheme to use super intelligence to defraud companies of $129 million](https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/three-foreign-nationals-arrested-and-charged-scheme-use-super-intelligence-defraud) · [SDNY on X (Nov 5)](https://x.com/SDNYnews/status/2118451618173895098) · [SecurityWeek / AP: 3 Charged in Scheme to Use AI to Impersonate CEOs and Attorneys to Steal $129 Million](https://www.securityweek.com/3-charged-in-scheme-to-use-ai-to-impersonate-ceos-and-attorneys-to-steal-129-million/)