Scammers used deepfake AI technology to create fraudulent videos of Maltese politicians Joseph Muscat and Robert Abela appearing to endorse cryptocurrency and oil trading platforms by replacing original audio with AI-generated voiceovers.
Fraudulent Facebook pages created deepfake videos of former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and current Prime Minister Robert Abela appearing to promote investment platforms. The scammers took genuine footage from legitimate interviews - Muscat from a 2013 Sky News interview about migration and Abela from a 2021 Global Citizen video about COVID-19 - and replaced the original audio with AI-generated speech promoting Nord Invest cryptocurrency platform and Oil Profit trading platform respectively. The fake videos used deepfake technology to synchronize the fraudulent speech with the politicians' lip movements to appear more legitimate. The videos were distributed through suspicious Facebook pages including one called KETO with minimal followers that was created in December and another called Marketing Blackhole created in January. The KETO page bizarrely used an image of actor Mel Gibson as its cover image while misgendering him. These scams are part of a broader pattern of similar fraudulent videos targeting political figures globally, with the report noting that similar deepfake scams have previously used figures like European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and actor Russell Crowe.
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.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed
No population impact data reported.