You dont need to do anything illegal, there are a bunch of buzzword business who suck up venture capital and then go under in a few years with no repercussions because its what they are designed to do. You just make sure to pay yourself a nice big salary while you do nothing.

You need one or more friends who can plausibly pose as "AI engineers". You then need to make up some technobabble that sounds kind of believable. You use this to woo investors. This is the hardest part, you need them to believe you are a serious tech guy and not just some random guy. This is usually done through networking so you would like to get someone who's some or who knows someone who's someone to be in on your scam.

It's smooth sailing from there. Just pay yourself and your buddies large salaries and bonuses while doing some work towards your promises. Build a website, make a few conceptual mockups of whatever it is you promised.

Keep this going until A. You get bought out or B. Investment dries up and your company goes bust while you go "aw shucks, I guess the market just wasn't ready for an AI dog walker". Rinse and repeat.

By "investing" you mean offloading the billions of debt derivatives their Forbes list generating but made zero profits company has into a sparkly new IPO or SPAC(e) that's gated behind a legally enforceable wealth mean testing firewall during a "stealth launch".

Or you could be like [Kissinger and Henry Morgan and and say you'll use an poisoned algorithmic vetting of potential C-suite candidates to head up the next oligarchy in a cordnated plan to install a controlled oligarchy to control the political system and then crash said system.

AI Consulting

How do you scam a bunch of idiot tech investors to invest in your "AI company"

Implement "AI" for your customers (big-shot ego-driven executives)...

and then fuck off with their money while staying in the same country, never being prosecuted, and repeating?

...and bolt before it comes crashing down. Rinse, repeat. You can even call yourself an honest-to-god business and point to your previous ~~marks~~ customers as successful gigs!