Pearce Banjolo could not believe what that forensic technician was telling him: the voice that was presented to him as that of his late grandmother was actually a cloned sound thanks to the artificial intelligence (AI) program. Speechify, available online. “I was desperate to receive some guidance from my deceased ancestral spirits and I was an easy target,” Banjolo admits to this newspaper from Soweto, a large suburb of Johannesburg, where the vast majority of the population is black.
Banjolo, 40, has been unemployed for the past 10 years. A healer he consulted told him that unless he invoked the spirit of his late grandmother, he would reach the age of 60 without a job, spouse, or family of his own. According to South African Government data for 2023, South Africa has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world, with 61% of young people between 15 and 25 years old and 40% of the population between 25 and 34 years old without work or income. Unemployment affects black South Africans more strongly than whites, according to these official data. 7% of the white active population was unemployed in 2023, compared to 36.8% of the black population.
In this complicated context, many people turn to healers or sangomas, as they are called in South Africa’s dominant isiXhosa language. The sangomas They have always made a living using herbs and incense to cure ailments or throwing animal bones into the ground to interpret the past and foresee a person’s future. Although South Africa is a country in which 89% of the population affirms that they have been raised in the midst of Christian traditions, in practice, a good part of the country’s black population, which represents 49 of the 60 million inhabitantspractices the African ancestor cult offered by the sangomasin the words of Gogo Twane Zulu, healer and coordinator of the National African Healers Association of South Africa.
South Africa’s new shamans are in their twenties, educated, have tens of thousands of followers on social media and are sometimes reality TV stars.
Before the existence of the Internet, sangomas or shamans used animal remains, burned incense to ward off evil spirits, dressed in mammal skins and met with clients in mud and straw huts, this man says. But “the Internet has changed that image,” says Gogo Zulu.
As broadband internet flourishes in South Africa—Africa’s most connected country—young sangomas They practice on X, Instagram, WhatsApp or Facebook, social networks in which they praise their “spiritual powers.” They are in their twenties, educated, have tens of thousands of followers and sometimes are reality TV stars. All in one, as is the case of Khanyisile Mnguni, @slaysangoma on Instagram. “Now they are influencers-sangomas”says Gogo Zulu.
Indebted and scammed
It was this image that attracted Banjolo and many others. “They told me that a sangoma I would bring the spirit of my late grandmother, but I had to pay 10,000 rand (500 euros) in advance. I borrowed from my brothers, transferred the money digitally and the sangoma “He invited me to a cabin where he would enter a trance, resurrect my grandmother’s spirit and give me instructions,” he explains.
I was desperate for some guidance from my deceased ancestral spirits and was an easy target.
Pearce Banjolo, South African victim of scam
On the day of the ceremony, Banjolo remembers being told to squat in a mud hut. A curtain separated it from sangoma, whom, according to the rituals, he should not see. “A grumpy voice similar to my grandmother’s filtered in from behind the curtain, explaining to me why my life was a mess and how to appease her spirit to solve my problems,” she recalls. A few hours after the ritual, she realized that it had all been a scam. “The voice had been reproduced thanks to an AI program and they had used a speaker. There was not sangoma behind the curtain. I cried uncontrollably. I had been robbed, I was in debt to my brothers and I was still out of work,” he explains.
Colonel Brian Malope, a forensic detective with the South African Police Service’s serious fraud squad, has seen many similar cases with this AI program, which began being used about two years ago in the country. At the moment, the Johannesburg City Police have in their hands five cases of people who were falsely sangomas They were defrauded of two million rands (about 100,000 euros) using AI to replicate supposed voices of their deceased relatives, explains the person responsible. “He modus operandi It is always the same. You pay thousands of rand in advance to prepare the ritual and chat with the criminals on the phone,” she explains. On some occasions, they get the victim to send them audio recordings with their relatives, which they then manipulate with AI. In others, when they are relatives that the victim has never met, they secretly record the interlocutor’s own voice and then modify it with this program, convincing him that it is that of her relative.
Fake sangomas using AI-generated voice are a disgrace to noble ancestor worship beliefs that have stood the test of time.
Gogo Twane Zulu, medicine man
On the day of the ceremony, the person goes to a cabin in the hope of meeting a spiritualist hidden behind a curtain. “But there is no one, just a loudspeaker, and the scammers disappear without a trace,” he adds. According to police data provided by Malope, almost 25 million rand (1.26 million euros) have been stolen throughout South Africa in the last two years by fake sangomas who take advantage of gullible and desperate citizens. In that same period of time, only 30 suspects have been prosecuted and only nine have been convicted, because it is a difficult crime to prove, since AI technology advances without regulation, explains the colonel.
Crimes using AI-generated voices go beyond cleansing ceremonies. Sometimes, ancestors ask their descendants for money and promise to miraculously multiply it by ten, explains the police official.
According to Pastor Thulani Gwala, a board member of the Zion Christian Church, which boasts nearly two million followers among black South Africans, these crimes stem in some way from the practices carried out by “some unscrupulous religious leaders.” ” in the country.
“The sangomas fakes that use AI-generated voice are a shame to the noble beliefs of ancestor worship that have stood the test of time,” corroborates Gogo Zulu. “It is very difficult to eliminate criminals because voice cloning technology thanks to AI can be manufactured anywhere: in the United States, in China, in Europe… and it has no control mechanisms. But it’s tarnishing the reputation of the real deal. sangomas like us”, he concludes.
You can follow Future Planet in x, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok and subscribe here to our newsletter.
#fake #shamans #imitate #dead #grandmothers #voice #scam #desperate #South #Africans