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# The Old Con Has a New Voice
- URL: https://mike-morrison-public-safety-and-accountability.ghost.io/the-old-con-has-a-new-voice/
- Published: 2026-09-08T22:08:20.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-08T22:08:20.000Z
- Author: Michael D. Morrison

*Artificial intelligence did not invent the bail scam. It gave every con man a professional's polish and pointed him at the people least able to tell the difference.*

Bail scams are not new. What is new is how good they have gotten. For years, families with a loved one in jail have been targeted by callers who claim to be a bail agent, a court clerk, or a jail official. The caller knows the inmate's name. He knows the charge. He tells the family the bond has already been posted, or that it can be posted right now if they send the money immediately. The money goes to a payment app, a gift card, or a wire transfer. Then the caller is gone, the money is gone, and the loved one is still in jail. In Mississippi and across the country, these scams have taken thousands and thousands of dollars from families at the worst moment of their lives, and almost none of it is ever recovered.

Artificial intelligence has made this scam harder to catch and easier to run. A scammer no longer needs to sound like a bail agent. He can sound like a real one. Voice cloning tools can copy a voice from a short recording, and jail rosters, court dockets, and social media give a scammer everything he needs to make the call feel real. The caller can sound calm, professional, and local. He can answer questions. The old warning signs, a foreign accent, a bad connection, a story that does not add up, are being engineered out of the call. A frightened family on the phone at midnight has no way to hear the difference. That is the problem. The scam did not get smarter. The tools did.

The bail scam is one example of a much larger pattern. In April 2026, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center released its report for 2025 and, for the first time in the report's history, tracked AI-related fraud as its own category. That category alone accounted for 22,364 complaints and nearly $893 million in reported losses. Total reported losses across all internet crime reached about $20.88 billion, up 26 percent from the year before, from more than one million complaints. Those are only the cases people reported. Most victims never file a complaint, and many never realize AI was part of what happened to them.

The same tools used in bail scams are being used everywhere a bad actor can find a trusting person. The largest losses are in investment fraud, most of it built around cryptocurrency. The scammer does not rush. He builds a relationship over weeks or months, sometimes as a friend, sometimes as a romantic interest, and only then steers the victim into a fake opportunity. What used to take one con man's full attention can now be handled by software running hundreds of these conversations at once, each one patient and personal. Reported cryptocurrency losses in 2025 passed $11 billion, and investment fraud made up $632 million of the AI-related total on its own. Close behind is the family emergency scam, which works exactly like the bail scam except the caller is the family member. A cloned voice of a grandchild or a child, crying and asking for money, is all it takes. The third is government impersonation. Spoofed caller ID, stolen agency seals, and AI-generated audio and video of officials let a scammer pose as a court, a sheriff's office, the IRS, or Social Security with a level of polish that was out of reach a few years ago. Romance scams, tech support scams, and business wire fraud run on the same machinery, but these three show the pattern most clearly, and in every one of them the money is almost never seen again.

Every one of these scams was tried before AI existed. AI did not invent the con. It removed the friction. It took scams that required skill, time, and a convincing performance and turned them into something that can be scaled, automated, and personalized to the victim. It gave the amateur the polish of a professional. And it aimed that polish at the people least able to defend against it. Americans 60 and older reported $7.75 billion in losses in 2025, more than any other group. These are people who trust a voice on the phone, who answer when someone calls, and who act when they believe a family member is in danger.

The bail profession did not wait for someone else to solve this. The leadership of the Professional Bail Agents of the United States, working with the Bail Media Alliance, has put together the largest anti-bail-scam campaign this country has seen. Since March, working bail agents and state association leaders have carried the warning into newsrooms across the country: television stations in Charlotte, Raleigh, Seattle, Toledo, and Wichita Falls; newspapers from North Carolina to Colorado; public radio and statewide news outlets in Oklahoma; and podcasts that reach families who never watch the local news. The message is the same in every market. A real bail agent is licensed, has a local office, and can be verified before a dollar changes hands. Media across the United States has picked up the story, and the campaign is still growing.

I am not saying that AI is the enemy. It is a tool, and like every tool it works for whoever picks it up. What I am saying is that the people building these tools and the people regulating them have been slow to recognize what they put in the hands of criminals. The bail scam is a small piece of the picture, but it is the piece I know best, and it tells the whole story. A family in crisis, a caller who sounds real, a demand for money now, and a loss that no one will ever get back. That is what bad actors and AI look like from the ground, and it is happening to more people, for more money, every year. The technology will keep improving. The question is whether the rest of us will. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mike Morrison is President of the Mississippi Bail Agents Association and the 2026 PBUS National Bail Agent of the Year. With more than 35 years in professional bail and many years working directly with the Mississippi Legislature on bail law, criminal justice policy, and public-safety issues, Morrison has seen firsthand how decisions made by elected officials can strengthen—or weaken—the systems responsible for accountability in Mississippi communities.

His position today is clear: the status quo is no longer acceptable. Anti-bail and anti-accountability policies should not go unanswered simply because they come from an elected office. Sheriffs, supervisors, legislators, prosecutors, judges, and other public officials make decisions that directly affect public safety, court appearance, crime victims, taxpayers, and the ability of the criminal justice system to function as intended. Those decisions deserve scrutiny, and the people making them should expect to be held accountable by the voters they serve.

Under Morrison’s leadership, the Mississippi Bail Agents Association is developing a stronger statewide voice built around education, legislative involvement, public communication, and political awareness. With members and relationships in communities throughout Mississippi, MBAA has both the reach and the responsibility to identify candidates who support public safety and meaningful accountability—and to challenge policies and elected leadership that move Mississippi in the opposite direction.

For Morrison, strengthening professional bail is only part of the objective. The larger responsibility is strengthening public safety across Mississippi by making certain that the people entrusted with public office understand that accountability applies to them as well.