Powered by generative AI, investment scammers are creating vast quantities of deceptive content designed to thwart investors’ efforts to undertake basic due diligence, Australian regulators are warning.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is reporting that it has seen a “sharp rise” in online scams that use deepfake videos involving phoney endorsements from high-profile politicians and celebrities as part of a broader ecosystem of fake content that’s being created to deceive investors, including fake websites, reviews, news stories and videos.
“Scammers are targeting the very places online that consumers use to check whether an investment is genuine,” the ASIC said — noting that the schemes are now creating a collections of fake content that are designed to work together to deceive investors into believing that a scam investment is genuine, luring them from mainstream social media platforms to online boiler rooms and fake investment platforms, which are often operated by offshore criminals.
In the past year, the ASIC has taken down 19,400 online scams, which is up 182% from the previous year, it said.
The regulator’s removals of fake investment platforms jumped by 151%, takedowns of phishing scams increased 279%, and crypto scams were up 30%, it reported.
Against that backdrop, it’s now warning investors to be more careful in verifying the authenticity of online investments.
The standard advice from regulators to investors to “check registration” before investing is not enough in the current environment, it noted, as scammers are also misusing registration information to impersonate licensed firms.
The ASIC warned that “cursory [registration] checks are not enough,” and advised investors to not rely solely on online search results, websites or ads to verify a firm or investment’s authenticity.
“The presence of polished content, familiar branding or convincing testimonials does not mean an investment is legitimate,” said ASIC chair, Sarah Court, in a release.
“AI is making investment scams more convincing and harder to detect. A simple online search is not enough to verify whether an opportunity is legitimate,” she stressed.
The ASIC called on investors to ensure they independently verifying licensing information with its professional registers.