Old Mutual Reportedly Warns of Purported Deepfake Videos Impersonating Chairman Trevor Manuel in Investment Scams

October 3, 2025

Old Mutual South Africa has issued a warning about deepfake videos allegedly featuring its chairman, Trevor Manuel, endorsing fraudulent investment schemes on social media. These deepfakes purportedly used AI-generated images and voices to deceive potential investors. The incident underscores the need for responsible AI governance, particularly in areas like AI-driven deepfake detection and prevention. While Manuel has denied involvement, the incident serves as a reminder of the threats posed by unregulated AI use. For those interested in shaping safe and secure AI practices, consider joining HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM to Govern, Map, Measure, or Manage such incidents.

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Matched TAIM controls

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Alleged deployer
unknown-scammers-impersonating-trevor-manuel, unknown-scammers
Alleged developer
unknown-voice-cloning-technology-developers, unknown-deepfake-technology-developers
Alleged harmed parties
trevor-manuel, old-mutual, investors, general-public-of-south-africa, epistemic-integrity, truth

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1226

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

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.