The Bank of England (BoE) has issued a warning regarding AI deepfake scams featuring its governor and British politician Nigel Farage.
The deepfakes, which circulated on Elon Musk’s X social media platform this week, showed Farage and BoE governor Andrew Bailey fighting on the TV set of a news station.
In one image, Farage appears to be kicking Bailey whole on the ground, while another shows him pulling a gun on the BoE chief.
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The posts link to a web page that has an accompanying article, which promotes a financial trading scheme that the scammers promise can turn £250 (roughly $475) into £1 million (roughly $1.9 million) in just 11 weeks.
Bailey issued a statement regarding the scams, warning that scams like this were becoming increasingly common, aided by the development of AI.
“Unfortunately, fake adverts impersonating the Bank of England and other central banks are on the rise,” said Bailey.
“These scams are designed to criminally exploit the public, especially the vulnerable, when they are online.”
Bailey urged the public to “report these scams” and remain vigilant against cyber criminals.
“That way authorities can better root out digital deception like this and permanently remove the fraudsters responsible for what is a truly online scourge,” he said.
Similarly, Farage put the rumours of the fight depicted in the deepfakes to bed, saying that the two would never fight to the degree shown in the scams.
“You may have seen some bizarre AI videos on this platform today. Whilst Andrew Bailey and I have our disagreements, I would never take it that far!” he said.
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Daniel Croft
Born in the heart of Western Sydney, Daniel Croft is a passionate journalist with an understanding for and experience writing in the technology space. Having studied at Macquarie University, he joined Momentum Media in 2022, writing across a number of publications including Australian Aviation, Cyber Security Connect and Defence Connect. Outside of writing, Daniel has a keen interest in music, and spends his time playing in bands around Sydney.