Associated Incidents
A wave of AI-generated deepfake videos mimicking real news broadcasts have flooded Lithuanian social media in recent weeks, promoting fake medical products and spreading anti-vaccine disinformation.
Investigators told Lithuania's public broadcaster LRT that the fraudulent videos are part of an international scam network targeting multiple European countries.
The deepfakes imitate well-known Lithuanian television programs and feature fabricated interviews with public figures. In one video, a deepfake version of MEP and former Health Minister Aurelijus Veryga appears to promote an eye health product.
"If in 2025 you are still putting the first eye drops you find into your eyes, you are either ignorant or behaving like complete idiots," says the Veryga deepfake.
Another video shows a deepfaked celebrity doctor falsely claiming that vaccines are harmful, while also advertising a medicinal product.
High-quality deception
The fakes were generated using publicly available footage from social media and television, making the impersonations disturbingly realistic.
According to Viktoras Daukšas, head of Lithuania's fact-checking initiative Debunk.org, researchers have identified 20 such videos so far, all of which have been removed from Facebook. But the content had already reached a wide audience across the European Union.
"This campaign uses deepfake videos of the highest quality we have detected in Lithuania so far," Daukšas told LRT, adding: "The errors are visible only in some grammatical cases and stress patterns."
Daukšas said that the scammers crafted the videos to catch attention with sensational claims, especially around vaccine safety, and then used anti-vaccine social media groups to amplify the content. Links embedded in the posts redirected users to fraudulent sites designed to steal money.
He added that the fraudulent content had likely been seen by hundreds of thousands of people across the EU.
"The numbers are large; these deceptive ads have been shown in about 14-15 EU countries. Over 20 accounts have already been found, and more are discovered daily. I think we're talking about hundreds of thousands [of views] or more," he said.
'A new level of fraud'
Lithuania's National Crisis Management Centre (NCMC), a state body responsible for coordinating the country's response to national emergencies including disinformation, described the campaign as a "new level of fraud" and warned about the growing threat posed by AI-driven disinformation.
Beyond the deception, authorities face a major challenge in pursuing the perpetrators. Many operate from jurisdictions such as Russia, which does not cooperate with Lithuanian law enforcement, or from Ukraine, where the ongoing war complicates investigation efforts.
The NCMC has urged social media companies to do more to detect and remove deepfake videos.
Cross-border efforts
Experts stress that fighting this kind of fraud requires coordinated cross-border action.
"Law enforcement's job is to continue analysis. We found this is an international group and operation; investigating these cases requires international efforts," Daukšas told LRT.
"Lithuania's police alone cannot solve them," he added.