Description: Purportedly AI-generated deepfake videos and fabricated news pages impersonating Maltese ministers, journalists, financial experts, and major media outlets reportedly promoted the fraudulent "NethertoxAGENT" investment platform. The scam used synthetic interviews, cloned branding, and falsified testimonials to mislead social media users, reportedly inducing financial losses and prompting law enforcement concern in Malta.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown voice synthesis technology developers , Unknown generative AI developers and Unknown deepfake technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Unknown scammers , Unknown scam network based in Malta and NethertoxAGENT scammers, which harmed TVM , Times of Malta , Silvio Schembri , Rosianne Cutajar , Roberta Metsola , Robert Abela , Newsbook , Michael C. Bonello , Matthew Bonanno , MaltaToday , Malta Independent , Malta Financial Services Authority , Lombard Bank Malta , Kenneth Farrugia , Journalists in Malta , Journalists , Journalistic integrity , Investors in Malta , Investors , Ian Borg , General public of Malta , General public , Francis J. Vassallo , Epistemic integrity and Clyde Caruana.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Unknown voice cloning technology , Unknown generative AI systems and Unknown deepfake technology
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1290
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2025-10-27
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
Loading...
A series of scam articles featuring a host of Maltese ministers advertising a fraudulent trading scheme, have hit Maltese social media just hours after budget day.
The scam articles feature a series of interviews, purportedly published by t…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
Seen something similar?
