Description: Citizens in Cyprus reported being targeted by an alleged investment scam involving purported AI-manipulated videos that appeared to depict government officials endorsing financial platforms. The Cyprus Consumers Association stated that several individuals suffered significant financial losses after being misled by the videos, which circulated via social media and messaging apps. Authorities are investigating, and the association has warned of potential cross-border spread of the scheme.
Editor Notes: See also Incident 1064, which pertains to an earlier alleged deepfake scam incident in Cyprus. Timeline note: Activity for this incident reportedly can be traced back to January 2025, with public reporting on it appearing on 05/12/2025 (which is what this incident ID takes as its date).
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown deepfake technology developer developed an AI system deployed by Unknown scammers and Unknown fraudsters, which harmed Haris Georgiades , General public of Cyprus and Averof Neofytou.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Various social media platforms and Unknown deepfake technology
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1063
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2025-05-12
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
Citizens who fall victim to investment fraud through manipulated videos of politicians encouraging investments are receiving threats when they discover the deception and demand explanations, according to the Cyprus Consumers Association.
De…
Variants
A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
