Deepfake voice and video scam attempt targets WPP CEO Mark Read

Fraudsters attempted to impersonate WPP chief executive Mark Read to defraud one of the advertising group’s agency leaders. They set up a fake WhatsApp account using a publicly available photo of Read, used it to arrange a Microsoft Teams meeting, and during the call combined a cloned voice with archival YouTube footage of Read while typing impersonated messages in the chat window rather than appearing on camera. The goal, according to WPP’s own account of the incident, was to persuade the target to help set up a new business and hand over money and personal details.

The attempt failed. WPP said the targeted executive grew suspicious and the scam was caught before any funds or data were lost, crediting staff vigilance rather than any technical detection system.

The case became one of the more widely cited examples of voice-cloning fraud aimed at a named public figure — Read had discussed it openly with staff — at a time when reports of AI-assisted business email compromise and impersonation scams were rising sharply across the region, though the specific scale of that trend rested on incident-tracking estimates rather than a single authoritative count.