Reportedly Sustained Multi-Celebrity Deepfake Persona Scam Targeting Vulnerable Southampton Resident
Over about five months in 2025, Paul Davis, a Southampton, UK man, reports that he was repeatedly targeted by scammers using purported deepfake videos and images of celebrities including Jennifer Aniston, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Ellie Goulding. The perpetrators allegedly rotated personas to sustain a romance and prize scam, extracting £200 in gift cards. This case suggests a new shift from one-off celebrity deepfakes to persistent, multi-persona targeting of a single vulnerable victim.
- Date it happened
- 2025-06-28
- Organisation involved
- Scammers
- Product, system or model
- WhatsApp, Deepfake technology, Synthetic audio generation technology
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