There has been a steep rise in scammers luring victims into phoney investment opportunities using deepfakes of celebrities and politicians, Australia’s corporate watchdog has warned.
And Anthony Albanese is the figure most commonly co-opted.
Real footage of the prime minister, overlaid with fake audio promising Australians can invest $4,000 to earn $40,000 a month, appears in one video online.
“This is not just another scam product,” the deepfake Albanese says, falsely describing it as an “official platform” with a government guarantee.
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (Asic) dealt with more than 19,400 scams last financial year, almost triple the amount in the year before.
Artificial intelligence is making it increasingly easy to generate deepfakes, it warned.
Fake celebrities were just the beginning. Scammers have built networks of fake brands, websites, reviews, news articles and videos that work together to convince victims to ultimately give them money, which ends up going to overseas criminals, Asic said.
According to reports to the National Anti-Scam Centre’s Scamwatch, Australians lost $7.4m to the top 10 impersonated public figures, and Albanese was at the top of the list.
In one video, a deepfake of the prime minister promises people can earn $35 an hour, which is “about $850 per day” and “over $25,000 per month”, according to the Australian Financial Review. The disinformation and dodgy maths are presented with an American accent.
“Greetings. From the first day I became prime minister, I wanted to improve the tax system. We will not fully get rid of taxes, of course, but any resident will be able to receive dividends from them,” the fake says.
Economists Tom Piotrowski and Stephen Koukoulas; ABC financial journalist Alan Kohler; and politicians Jacqui Lambie and Angus Taylor (showing Lambie confronting Taylor on Insiders about patronising people) make up the top five.
They were followed by entrepreneur Dick Smith, billionaire Gina Rinehart, economist Alan Oster, Pauline Hanson and the late radio legend John Laws.
“It is important to note that scammers are receptive to broader changes in the news cycle and will opportunistically change which celebrities they impersonate to capitalise on topical issues,” Asic warned.
Last financial year, Asic took down 5,476 phishing scam hyperlinks, almost four times as many as the previous year; 7,051 fake investment platforms, 2.5 times higher; and 3,106 cryptocurrency scams, an increase of almost 30%.
“The presence of polished content, familiar branding or convincing testimonials does not mean an investment is legitimate,” the Asic chair, Sarah Court, said.
“AI is making investment scams more convincing and harder to detect. A simple online search is not enough to verify whether an opportunity is legitimate.
“Before investing, consumers should verify website addresses, check whether a person or company is legitimate and who they claim to be, and be wary of urgent calls to act.”
Scamwatch advises consumers to stop before sharing money or information; to check the details independently; and to protect yourself and others by reporting any scams to them, your bank, or cyber.gov.au.
Asic said consumers should check for a certified Australian financial services licence but also be aware that scammers misuse those licences, so they should check against Asic’s professional registers.
Commonwealth Bank research published earlier this year found about nine in 10 Australians were confident they could spot an AI scam but in reality they can do so less than half the time.
Deepfakes are also increasingly being used politically. Independent MP Zali Steggall has proposed a bill to crack down on deceptive political advertising, which would require AI-generated content that could mislead voters to be clearly identified.
