- New Zealand’s FMA warns of a scam involving fake news articles and celebrity interviews promoting fraudulent investment platforms.
- Scammers use AI-generated deepfake videos and existing photos/videos of celebrities to lure victims into making investments.
New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has issued a warning about a sophisticated scam targeting investors on social media. The scam involves fake news articles and deepfake celebrity interviews that promote fraudulent crypto and forex investment platforms.
Scammers create ads on social media featuring fake news articles, using images of local celebrities, that lead to imposter websites. These websites contain fake interviews with celebrities discussing high profits made on specific platforms, along with links to those fraudulent platforms.
Victims who provide their contact information are then contacted by “brokers” or “financial advisors” who ask for an initial payment. The scammers even convince victims to download remote access software. To create a false sense of legitimacy, they initially transfer “profits” to the victim’s account, only to demand higher investments later.
The FMA urges extreme caution when engaging with social media ads using celebrity images to promote investments and advises against clicking on these ads or giving out personal information.
