Deepfakes of Australia’s Prime Minister Are Being Used to Run Investment Scams
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19,400
Scams Removed This Year
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182%
Increase From Last Year
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$7.4M
Lost to Impersonation Scams
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High
Fooled Index
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AI-GENERATED — The face is real. The offer coming out of his mouth never happened.
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Australia's corporate regulator, ASIC, said this week that it removed more than 19,400 online scams over the past financial year, a 182% jump from the year before. A growing share of them rely on AI-made videos of real, trusted public figures appearing to personally recommend an investment.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese topped the list of impersonated Australians. In one video, his real face and voice were combined with fabricated audio offering to invest $4,000 in exchange for $40,000 a month, describing the platform as government-backed, which it never was. Other frequently faked figures included Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, ABC finance journalist Alan Kohler, Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock, mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, and Senator Pauline Hanson.
The scams follow a set pattern. A short deepfake video runs as a social media ad, and clicking it leads to a fake news article built to look like a real outlet, using the fake video as "proof" the endorsement is real. That fake article then funnels people to a scam investment platform designed purely to take their money.
ASIC's chair said these celebrity impersonations are usually just one piece of a much bigger, coordinated setup, backed by spoof websites, fake reviews, and fabricated news articles working together to look legitimate. Losses reported to Australia's Scamwatch from these impersonation scams reached $7.4 million over the year.
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Real face, fake words. Albanese's actual face and voice were paired with completely fabricated audio he never recorded, offering guaranteed returns he never promised.
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The numbers don’t add up. No legitimate investment turns a $4,000 deposit into $40,000 a month; guaranteed high returns like this are a hallmark of a scam, not a real opportunity.
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The “news article” isn’t real. The video links to a fake article built to mimic a real news outlet, using the deepfake itself as manufactured proof the story is legitimate.
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A documented, government-confirmed pattern. Australia's own financial regulator tracked and confirmed the scale of this exact scam pattern, not just a single viral post.
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🚨 100% AI-Generated
Anthony Albanese never offered anyone a guaranteed investment return, and neither did any of the other public figures named in these videos. Real footage of trusted people gets combined with entirely fabricated AI audio, then wrapped in fake news articles to make a scam feel credible enough to hand over real money.
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A Man Lost $128,000 to a Fake Video of India’s Finance Minister
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A video circulating on Instagram and Facebook showed India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman appearing to personally endorse a trading platform called Quantum AI, promising huge automated returns from a small deposit. India's Press Information Bureau confirmed the video was AI-generated and that Sitharaman never endorsed any such scheme; fact-checkers noted her mouth movements didn't naturally match the words in the audio. The warning came too late for one victim: a 58-year-old businessman in Pune lost ₹1.07 crore, about $128,000, after seeing the video, opening a fake trading account, and watching his "investment" appear to grow before scammers demanded more and more fees to let him withdraw it.
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No, an Orangutan Wasn’t Photographed Cradling Two Leopard Cubs in the Jungle
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A black-and-white image spread widely this month showing what looked like an orangutan gently holding two leopard cubs deep in a Malaysian jungle, framed as a heartwarming, unlikely animal friendship. Conservation experts and AFP fact-checkers confirmed the image was AI-generated, part of a larger wave of fabricated wildlife photos that also includes a fake elephant climbing a tree to escape flooding in Myanmar and a fake pink dolphin leaping from the water in the Philippines. Experts warn these images aren't just harmless fun; they can shift public understanding of real animal behavior in ways that end up making it harder to protect the actual species involved.
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YOUR REALITY DETECTOR TOOLKIT |
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Today’s Skill: Distrust Any Guaranteed High Return
A famous face doesn’t make an impossible promise any more true.
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Distrust any guaranteed high return
No real investment turns $4,000 into $40,000 a month. If a video promises a specific, guaranteed payout like that, assume it's a scam before anything else.
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Check if the ‘news article’ is on the real outlet’s site
These scams link to news articles built to look real. Go to the actual outlet's website directly and search for the story yourself.
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Remember a real face doesn’t mean real words
Albanese's actual face and voice were used, but the words were entirely fabricated. Seeing someone you recognize is not proof they actually said what you're hearing.
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