Malicious actors used AI-generated deepfake videos and images to impersonate financial experts including Martin Wolf and Brian Belski on Facebook and Instagram, running fraudulent investment schemes that reached nearly one million users and caused collective losses exceeding $1 million.
Starting in March 2025, cybercriminals created AI-generated deepfake videos and Photoshopped images impersonating prominent financial experts including Financial Times economics commentator Martin Wolf and Bank of Montreal strategist Brian Belski. These deepfakes were used in over 1,700 advertisements across Facebook and Instagram, purchased by ten fake accounts, to promote fraudulent WhatsApp investment groups. The scam reached over 970,000 users in the EU alone, with likely additional exposure in the UK and other English-speaking regions. Victims were lured into WhatsApp groups where they received stock recommendations that appeared profitable initially but resulted in significant losses once investors committed more money. Despite repeated takedown requests to Meta, new advertisements continued to appear using different fake accounts. David Rosenberg, another targeted economist, reported that victims of scams using his identity suffered collective losses exceeding $1 million. Meta eventually enrolled some victims like Wolf in a facial recognition system to automatically detect and remove such scams, which appeared to reduce new incidents.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
Using AI systems to gain a personal advantage over others such as through cheating, fraud, scams, blackmail or targeted manipulation of beliefs or behavior. Examples include AI-facilitated plagiarism for research or education, impersonating a trusted or fake individual for illegitimate financial benefit, or creating humiliating or sexual imagery.
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed