HISPI Project Cerebellum HISPI PROJECT CEREBELLUM

Alleged Deepfake Investment Scam in Spain Defrauds 208 Victims of €19 million ($20.9 million)

April 7, 2025

Spanish authorities apprehended six suspects implicated in a €19M ($20.9M) global investment scheme orchestrated by AI. The operation exploited deepfake ads showcasing national celebrities, with victims often chosen via targeting algorithms. Scammers assumed identities as financial advisors and impostors, cycling among romance lures, investment fraud, and recovery scams. AI-generated content fortified trust and interaction.

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Alleged deployer
unnamed-criminal-group-in-spain, individuals-arrested-in-granada-and-alicante
Alleged developer
unknown-deepfake-technology-developers, unknown-generative-ai-developers
Alleged harmed parties
general-public, general-public-of-spain, global-victims-targeted-by-scams, individuals-who-lost-money-through-scam-investment-platforms

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1017

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

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