By Chuck Gallagher — Business Ethics Keynote Speaker and Trainer
TL;DR: Chuck Gallagher, AI ethics speaker and author, argues that deepfake romance scams are getting more convincing by the month. Families have a narrow window to teach older generations how to spot them. That window is closing.
Maria thought she’d found her prince. Literally.
He told her he was Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, the real Crown Prince of Dubai. He called her on video, his face lit up with what looked like genuine affection. He messaged her at all hours. “He kept on messaging me even when I was sleeping,” she later said. “It felt like there was a love spell that connected our minds.”
There was no spell. There was no prince. What Maria fell for was a stolen face, mapped in real time over a stranger’s voice, good enough to survive a video call. By the time she figured it out, she’d handed over a year’s worth of savings, chasing a marriage certificate and a “royal membership card” that never existed.
Sit with that for a second. Con artists borrowing a famous face — that’s nothing new. What’s new is the machine doing the borrowing. And that machine gets better every month.
What Happens When Love Itself Becomes a Deepfake?
Researchers have traced versions of this same scam back to crime syndicates operating out of Nigeria, all impersonating the same royal figure. Facebook groups built entirely around a fake prince have drawn thousands of followers. Manipulated images of him on one knee with a ring. A rose held out, captioned with a request for a “love you” on WhatsApp. Some commenters warn it’s a scam. Plenty more respond with hearts.
That split — the wary and the willing, sitting in the same comment thread — is the real story here. It’s not that people are foolish. It’s that the tools built to deceive them have never been this convincing.
Why Is This Getting Harder to Catch, Not Easier?
David Rand, a researcher at Cornell University, put it plainly: real-time video deepfakes are improving fast. Cross a certain threshold, and there will be no reliable way left to tell whether a video call is genuine. We are approaching that threshold now. Not someday.
The math backs him up. The Global Anti-Scam Alliance has estimated that romance fraud and related scams cost people worldwide roughly $442 billion in a single year. Royalty isn’t the only costume the scammers wear, either. French authorities opened an investigation after a woman was allegedly defrauded of 830,000 euros — close to a million dollars — by someone impersonating Brad Pitt. Different face. Same machine. Same playbook.
What Have I Learned Watching AI Reshape Trust?
As an AI ethics speaker and author, I’ve spent years watching technology outpace the instincts we rely on to protect ourselves. Here’s what I’ve come to believe. The danger was never the deepfake itself. The danger is the half-second of doubt it removes. Maria didn’t fall for a bad lie. She fell for a good one, rendered in a voice and a face her instincts told her to trust.
Who Is Most at Risk — and Why Aren’t They the Ones You’d Guess?
Everybody assumes it’s the elderly who fall hardest for this — alone, unfamiliar with technology. Sometimes that’s true. But Maria was a domestic worker abroad, resourceful enough to catch the fraud herself once she looked closely at a Facebook page. Isolation is the common thread, not age. Anyone starved for connection is a target — a widow, a shift worker overseas, a retiree who’s gone quiet on the family group chat.
That’s exactly why this can’t be a problem we solve after the fact, with lawsuits and takedown requests. It has to be solved before the first “Hello beloved” message ever lands.
Awareness groups have started pushing back, flagging fake accounts and warning followers before money changes hands. That’s a start. It’s not enough. One flagged comment doesn’t outrun a thousand new impersonation accounts. It never will.
What Can Younger Generations Actually Do About This?
As an AI ethics speaker and author, I get asked constantly what people can actually do about this. So here’s my ask, plain and simple. If you understand how deepfakes work — and if you’re reading this, you probably do — go have the conversation with the person in your life least likely to spot one. Not a lecture. A conversation. Show them a real deepfake video. Show them how a mouth can move out of sync with a voice, how a video call can be built entirely from stolen footage. Agree on a phrase or a phone call before someone asks for money. Frankly, that’s five minutes of your Sunday. It could save someone their retirement.
I don’t say that to scare you. I say it because the fix here isn’t new legislation or better detection software. Not yet. It’s a grandchild sitting down with a grandparent. It’s a niece walking her uncle through what a real royal Instagram account looks like versus a fake one. The technology moved fast. The education hasn’t caught up. That gap is where people lose their savings — and sometimes far more than that.
Trust me, the machines aren’t slowing down. Neither should we.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a “deepfake romance scam”?
A deepfake romance scam uses AI-generated video or audio to impersonate a real or invented person, often a celebrity or public figure, during live video calls. The victim believes they are speaking with someone real, when in fact the face and sometimes the voice have been synthetically generated in real time.
How can I tell if a video call is a deepfake?
Watch for mismatched lip movement and audio, unnatural blinking or lighting, and a reluctance to do anything unscripted, like turning the camera or reacting to a sudden request. The biggest tell is often behavioral: a refusal to ever meet in person, paired with a growing request for money.
Why are older adults often targeted by these scams?
Isolation, not age, is the biggest predictor of vulnerability. Anyone who is lonely, recently widowed, or disconnected from regular family contact can become a target, regardless of how comfortable they are with technology.
What should I do if I suspect I’m talking to a deepfake?
Stop sending money immediately, and ask the person to do something a deepfake struggles to replicate, like turning their head fully to the side on camera. Report the account to the platform, and if money has already been sent, contact your bank and local authorities right away.
How can families prepare for deepfake scams before they happen?
Agree in advance on a code phrase or verification step for any request involving money, and walk older or less tech-familiar relatives through real examples of deepfake video so they know what to look for. A five-minute conversation now is far cheaper than the loss later.
A Note From Chuck
These are exactly the conversations I build my keynotes around: plain talk about how technology is reshaping trust, and what leaders and families can do about it before the damage is done. To bring this conversation to your organization or community, visit ChuckGallagher.com.
Five Questions for Reflection
- Who in your life is most likely to be targeted by a scam like this — and have you had the conversation with them yet?
- What would it take for you to question a video call from someone you trusted, even if the face and voice seemed completely real?
- Where is the line between healthy skepticism and constant suspicion in an age of convincing deepfakes?
- What responsibility do platforms carry when they allow impersonation accounts to operate for months before removal?
- If the technology to detect deepfakes always lags behind the technology to create them, what has to change instead?
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