DeepfakeHigh
Nottingham Gallery Owner Allegedly Defrauded by Deepfake Impersonating Pierce Brosnan, Reportedly Leading to Business Closure
- Occurred
- Feb 8, 2025
- Published
- Feb 9, 2025
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
Nottingham gallery owner Simone Simms was allegedly deceived over many months by a deepfake impersonating actor Pierce Brosnan. Believing she was in direct contact with Brosnan, she reportedly arranged an art exhibition and sold £20,000 in tickets. When the real Brosnan denied involvement, Simms reportedly canceled the event and issued refunds. Despite acting in good faith, she reportedly faced reputational and financial harm, which led to the gallery’s closure in August 2024.
Developers
- Deepfake technology developers
Deployers
- Scammers
- Scammers impersonating Pierce Brosnan
Harmed parties
- Simone Simms
- Nottingham art community
- Long Eaton Gallery customers
- Long Eaton Gallery
Tags
- Deepfake fraud
- Identity impersonation scam
- AI-generated video deception
- Voice cloning fraud
- Art industry scam
- Social media impersonation
- Consumer fraud
- Business closure due to AI fraud
- Cyber-enabled financial fraud
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: Deepfake impersonation caused significant financial loss and business closure.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8