In June, 2025, a convincing Ai-generated voice impersonating Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, called Foreign Ministers, U.S. Governors, and members of Congress – while at the same time, Capitol Hill staff fell for fake apps, deployed by voice-cloning scammers.  Far more than just harmless pranks, these episodes are stark reminders: synthetic identities are no longer hypothetical – they’re here, and they’re disrupting investigations, national security and global diplomacy. 

These events demonstrate how adversaries are already weaponizing synthetic identities—complete with realistic audio and digital personas—to exploit trust and manipulate insiders.

The Emerging Threat Landscape

Synthetic identities, powered by generative Ai, are increasingly used in layered criminal schemes to commit fraud, espionage, and misdirection. This evolution presents multiple challenges:

  • Identity Document Fraud (e.g., fake IDs, passports, driver’s licenses, etc.) has surged by 311% in North America in Q1 2025—deepfakes are up 1,100%—according to Sumsub data  
  • The Federal Reserve reports that losses from synthetic ID fraud topped $35 billion in 2023, with Ai-enabled acceleration noted by its Vice President  .
  • These identities can impersonate real individuals—or invent entirely false ones—evading conventional verification and spawning elaborate disinformation campaigns on social and professional platforms.

FBI Warns of Growing of “Smishing” and “Vishing” Attacks

This growing trend of synthetic identity fraud, sometimes known as “smishing” (SMS phishing) and “vishing” (voice phishing) exploit trust, urgency and the increasing sophistication of Ai-generated voice and text.  The FBI recently issued a Private Industry Notification warning organizations about these threats, highlighting the surge in attacks where adversaries pose as trusted contacts to extract sensitive data or information or install malware.

Investigative and Security Challenges

  • Attribution Uncertainty – Investigators may trace communication or documents—but synthetic personas can often vanish without linking to a real person.
  • Operational Disruption – Deepfake messages compel staff to chase false leads, derailing investigations and wasting agency time.
  • Reputational and Diplomatic Risk – As seen in the Rubio case, false messaging could interfere with diplomatic negotiations or cause policy missteps at global levels.
  • Detection Gap – Standard KYC (Know Your Customer), credential validation, and fraud detection systems are not tuned for Ai-generated personas or audio spoofing.

How Kaseware Helps Counter Synthetic Identity Threats

Kaseware’s integrated platform equips security teams with capabilities to track, correlate, and investigate these cross-channel threats with greater speed and precision. 

Linking alerts across disparate signals:

  • Ai-powered link analysis deduplicates similar metadata across cases.

Validating Digital Identities: 

  • Integrates multi-source OSINT, documents, and forensic analysis tools for consistency checks.

Collaborative Investigations:

  • Shared, cloud-based case rooms enable Fraud, Legal, HR, and Threat teams to coordinate responses in real time.

Maintaining Chain of Custody and Timelines:

  • Built-in audit trails, change logs, and relationship mapping support evidentiary rigor

Call to Action:

Automation: Use Kaseware to support synthetic identity investigations and reveal potential fakes early.

Awareness: Educate teams on synthetic identity risks—especially when using high-trust communications like Signal, Telegram, or voice apps.

Policy integration: Embed digital identity validation steps (voice biometrics, document provenance, behavioral flags) into investigative workflows.

Cross-team coordination: Initialize internal reporting channels and shared cases to ensure transparency and rapid response.