HISPI Project Cerebellum HISPI PROJECT CEREBELLUM

Reported AI-Generated Deepfake Videos Impersonating Elon Musk and Dragon’s Den Allegedly Used in Cryptocurrency Investment Scam Targeting Canadian Victims

December 21, 2025

Canadian investors suffered a combined loss of $2.3 million due to deepfake videos, allegedly generated by AI, impersonating Elon Musk and Dragon's Den. These videos were used as part of a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment scheme, displaying fake profits and blocking withdrawals. Incidents such as these underscore the importance of trustworthy AI, responsible governance, and prevention measures for harmful AI incidents like this one. For those interested in shaping Project Cerebellum's efforts to Govern, Map, Measure, or Manage such situations, JOIN US.

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Alleged deployer
unknown-scammers-impersonating-elon-musk, unknown-scammers
Alleged developer
unknown-voice-cloning-technology-developers, unknown-deepfake-technology-developers
Alleged harmed parties
unnamed-resident-from-prince-edward-island, unnamed-resident-from-markham-ontario, general-public-of-canada, general-public, elon-musk, dragon's-den, canadian-investors, epistemic-integrity

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1325

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.