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KHOU-TV reports that fake Facebook and Instagram accounts used a Houston immigration attorney's real, AI-altered photos to pose as her law office.
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KHOU-TVAccording to KHOU-TV, a Houston immigration attorney says people are stealing her photos, altering them with artificial intelligence, and using them to impersonate her office on Facebook and Instagram.
Naimeh Salem says more than 20 people may have been targeted. Her law firm started getting calls from people who said they had already paid someone they believed was her or her staff.
The fake accounts use Salem's real name and real photos. The images are altered with AI and placed next to photos of other people posing as attorneys, so the pairing looks like a real legal team. The setup works because the photo is genuine and recognisable, even though the person behind the account is not.
One woman who spoke to KHOU by phone, without giving her name, said she and her husband paid about $11,000 after being promised a permit to stay in the United States within a month. The couple believed they were having real meetings with immigration agents. She said she only realised something was wrong after she looked into it herself and found that the photo was fake and made with artificial intelligence.
Salem says the people behind the accounts are targeting people who are already desperate. Many are afraid of deportation, arrest, or worse, and are willing to pay quickly for any chance at legal status.
The scam does not start with a fake name. It starts with a real one. Borrowing Salem's actual photos and reputation does the work that a fabricated identity could not: it makes a stranger's promise sound like it is coming from someone whose office already exists and whose name can be checked. The victim in this case did check, eventually, but only after money had already changed hands and a hearing date had already passed through someone else's hands.
That order matters. Verification happened after payment, not before. The fake meetings with "immigration agents" extended the illusion long enough that there was no single moment where the arrangement looked obviously wrong from the inside.
The photo was real. The office behind it was not. Anyone contacted by an attorney through a social media message, rather than through a verified law office number or website, has a reason to stop and check the firm directly before paying anything or attending any meeting tied to immigration status.
