Japanese teens arrested for using ChatGPT to create illegal phone contracts

The three males, aged 14, 15 and 16, allegedly developed a program 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 program 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 unauthorized access prohibition act" and computer fraud.

The students allegedly sold at least 2,500 illegal contracts, amounting to around JPY7.5 million (US$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, Japanese 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, apologized for the issue, adding that no data leaks were detected from within the company.