Mexico Arrests Family Accused of Using AI Voice Cloning to Extort Officials

Metepec, State of Mexico — A former treasurer of the Michoacan state government and four members of his family have been arrested on accusations they ran an extortion ring that used artificial intelligence to clone the voices of Supreme Court justices, governors, mayors and even officials in the President’s Office.

Federal Public Security Department personnel and State of Mexico prosecutors detained Luis Miranda Contreras, who served as treasurer under former Michoacan governor Fausto Vallejo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), along with his wife, his two children and a bodyguard.

According to the investigation, the group worked in stages. One member would call a target posing as the private secretary of a high-ranking official. A second person would then enter the conversation, using a cloned version of that official’s voice, to demand money, contracts or the placement of specific people in public posts.

Investigators said the suspects insisted on cash payments and that some banking transactions were routed through an architecture and construction company linked to one of Miranda’s daughters.

All five suspects were bound over for trial on extortion charges and remain in pretrial detention.

Scheme Ran From a Metepec Property Since 2021

Authorities say the extortion operation had been running since 2021 and was directed from a property in Metepec, in the State of Mexico, where the family was arrested. At the site, officers seized 19 cellphones, dozens of SIM cards and luxury vehicles.

Miranda Contreras was already the subject of a separate investigation into suspected embezzlement. He was arrested in 2017 over payments of 26.6 million pesos to suppliers who, according to the Michoacan prosecutor’s office at the time, never provided the services they billed for.

In 2018, a criminal court overturned the order holding him for trial, ruling there was insufficient evidence to keep the case against him open.