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WF-PQSTUE

Financial Times Journalist Martin Wolf Reports AI-Generated Investment Scam Using His Likeness on Instagram and Facebook

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.

Date it happened
2025-03-09
Organisation involved
Unknown scammers impersonating Martin Wolf, Scammers
Product, system or model
Instagram, Facebook, Deepfake technology, Synthetic audio generation technology
Where this came from
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Attribution

This incident was imported from AI Incident Database and is used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Our additions to it — the structured fields, the translation, the checks against other reports — are published under the same licence.

This is a record of what was reported, not a finding that anyone broke the law. If it names your organisation and you believe it is wrong, the corrections process is free and open to everyone.