DeepfakeHigh
Financial Times Journalist Martin Wolf Reports AI-Generated Investment Scam Using His Likeness on Instagram and Facebook
- Occurred
- Mar 9, 2025
- Published
- Jun 22, 2025
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
Beginning in March 2025, purported deepfakes impersonating Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf were distributed via ads on Facebook and Instagram, promoting an alleged fraudulent investment group. Despite repeated takedowns, the ads have reportedly persisted under new accounts. Meta data reportedly showed at least 1,700 ads reached over 970,000 users in the EU alone. The impersonations allegedly used AI-generated visuals and voice clones to mimic Wolf's likeness and mislead users.
Developers
- Deepfake technology developers
- Synthetic audio generation technology developers
Deployers
- Unknown scammers impersonating Martin Wolf
- Scammers
Harmed parties
- Martin Wolf
- Financial Times
- General public
Tags
- deepfake
- impersonation
- fraud
- scam
- social media
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: AI-generated deepfakes used for financial fraud affecting over 970,000 users.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8