Israeli Startup Develops App to Protect Elderly Russian Speakers from AI Voice Scam
The "Russian scam" targeting elderly Russian-speaking Israelis has become a widespread and sophisticated fraud, with victims losing millions weekly. Scammers often impersonate bank representatives or officials, increasingly using artificial intelligence to clone family members' voices to deceive seniors into transferring money. In 2024 alone, over 100 million shekels were stolen from elderly victims in Israel, with 2,655 fraud cases opened in 2025 involving elderly immigrants from the former Soviet Union, nearly double the previous year.
One notable case involved an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor couple who lost 150,000 shekels after a scammer posing as a bank employee convinced the grandmother to hand over their savings and bank details. The scammer used AI to mimic the voice of a family member to gain trust. This growing threat inspired Yaron Shemesh, CEO of the data accessibility startup Simpler Story, to develop TavKey, an app designed to combat such fraud.
TavKey works by generating a secure, encrypted family code that changes every minute, allowing seniors to verify callers by requesting the current code. The app is free, anonymous, requires no registration or internet connection, and is tailored for users aged 65 and older. It aims to provide a simple, accessible layer of protection against voice-cloning scams.
Law enforcement faces challenges in prosecuting these crimes due to scammers frequently changing phones, using disposable numbers, and exploiting the lack of surveillance at cash collection points. However, some arrests and indictments have been made, including a recent case involving a 31-year-old linked to a scam network converting stolen funds into gold worth half a million shekels.
The fight against these scams also extends to the civil arena, with ongoing class-action lawsuits against credit card companies for insufficient measures to prevent elder exploitation. The Israeli Supreme Court recently ordered a retrial of such a case, signaling continued legal scrutiny of financial institutions' responsibilities.
