Description: A Guelph, Ontario, woman reportedly lost $14,000 after clicking a social-media ad for a cryptocurrency investment purportedly promoted by MrBeast. Police said her losses accumulated through an initial $250 payment and later transfers made after she spoke with supposed representatives and someone she believed was the YouTube creator, including $5,000 sent to a crypto wallet.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown deepfake technology developers and Unknown voice cloning technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Unknown scammers and Unknown scammers impersonating MrBeast, which harmed Unnamed Guelph, Ontario woman , General public , Fans of MrBeast , Epistemic integrity , YouTube users and social media users.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Unknown deepfake technology , Unknown voice cloning technology , Unknown generative AI tools , Social media advertising systems and Cryptocurrency wallet infrastructure
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1485
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2026-05-05
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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Police in Guelph, Ont., are reminding people to be wary of celebrity endorsements of financial investments after a woman in the city lost thousands.
Police say a woman clicked on a social media ad that appeared to be popular YouTube content…
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.
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