Japanese teens arrested for using AI to create illegal phone contracts

Japanese police have arrested three teenagers who allegedly used AI chatbot ChatGPT to create fraudulent mobile phone contracts and illegally access carrier networks, authorities and local media said on Thursday.

The three males, aged 14, 15 and 16, allegedly developed a programme using ChatGPT to create fake contracts and hack the Rakuten Mobile phone network, the Yomiuri Shimbun and other media reported.

The two high school students and a middle-schooler also illegally bought people's credit card, ID and password information online that the AI programme then used to create the fake contracts, the reports said.

A police spokesman told AFP that two of the teens were arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of "violating the unauthorised access prohibition act" and computer fraud.

The students allegedly sold at least 2,500 illegal contracts, amounting to around 7.5 million yen ($50,000) in cryptocurrency, Kyodo News reported, citing unidentified police sources.

They also allegedly bought more than 3.3 billion IDs and passwords from someone they met on the encrypted messaging platform Telegram, the Yomiuri and other media said, citing anonymous investigative sources.

E-commerce giant Rakuten, the parent company of Rakuten Mobile, issued a statement warning customers: "Please be vigilant about contracts that you have no idea about."

The company also "confirmed the fraudulent mobile phone contracts using illicitly obtained IDs and passwords".

"We have been fully cooperating with police investigation on this issue, and have suspended use of illegal phone contracts and implemented password reset," the statement said.

Rakuten, which owns the popular messaging service Viber, apologised for the issue, adding that no data leaks were detected from within the company.