Fraudsters used AI-generated Frank Ocean songs to make 13,000 Canadian dollars (9,722 thousand USD). They sold a fake collection on a forum devoted to the origin of the singer’s music, writes Engadget.

It is about nine songs of Ocean, for the creation of which high-quality vocal fragments of the vocalist’s voice were used. A clip of one of the fake tracks was posted on the specified forum and users were convinced of its authenticity.

“Instantly, I noticed that everyone started to believe it,” explained the scammer, who goes by the nickname mourningassasin.

According to him, many people have expressed interest in private messages, offering big money for music. For example, last month $3-4 thousand was also received for each of the songs.

“This situation has put a major dent in our server’s credibility, and will result in distrust from any new and unverified seller throughout these communities,” said the owner of a Discord server where the fake tracks gained traction.

Recently, a song called Heart On My Sleeve became very popular in social networks. However, its artists Drake and The Weekend never recorded such track. It was created by using AI to clone voices. The song was recorded by an individual known as @ghostwriter, who claims that the AI training software was trained on the voices of the two artists. The composition was quickly removed from streaming services, and the situation itself exacerbated creative and legal issues in the music world.