DeepfakeHigh
Purported Deepfake Impersonating Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides Reportedly Defrauded Citizens of Thousands of Euros
- Occurred
- Dec 6, 2025
- Published
- Dec 6, 2025
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
Around December 2025, Cypriot authorities reported that scammers used a purportedly AI-generated deepfake video impersonating President Nicos Christodoulides and other officials to promote a fraudulent investment platform. The video deceived about 15 citizens, who each lost between €10,000 and €15,000. Officials warned that malicious AI impersonation schemes are increasing and that citizens currently lack effective protection.
Developers
- Deepfake technology developers
- Synthetic audio generation technology developers
Deployers
- Scammers in Cyprus
- Scammers impersonating Nikos Christodoulides
- Scammers
Harmed parties
- Nikos Christodoulides
- General public
- General public of Cyprus
- Epistemic integrity
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: AI-generated deepfake video used to impersonate a head of state and defraud citizens of significant funds.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8