Deepfake Scams Depicting Justin Trudeau, Elon Musk Cost 3 Canadian Men Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars

According to CTV News Toronto, Mohammad Haque encountered a video on social media that featured Prime Minister Justin Trudeau demonstrating how Canadians could achieve profits by investing in cryptocurrency.

Three Canadian men reportedly lost hundreds of thousands of dollars after watching videos that appeared to show prominent figures endorsing a cryptocurrency investment scheme.

The videos, which were later found to be deepfakes, showed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Elon Musk, and Giovanni Pugliano talking about the supposed investment opportunity.

The men were lured into investing in the scheme, believing that they could make substantial profits. However, they were later unable to withdraw their funds.

Mohammad Haque, who was defrauded of 226,000 CAD ($165,610), said he initially invested 1,200 CAD ($880) after seeing a video of Trudeau on social media. He believed he had accumulated $424,775 from his investments, but was later surprised to find his account was empty.

“The video I saw was later confirmed to be a deepfake by artificial intelligence (AI), and the scam resulted in a loss of 226,000 CAD for me.”

Darrell Budnick, who was defrauded of 130,000 CAD ($95,262), said he initially believed he was making profits by investing in the scheme. However, he later discovered he was unable to withdraw his funds.

“I am currently in crisis mode. My heart condition is worsening. This is painful. It is creating anxiety. I thought I was safe, but now I am in a very bad situation.”

Pugliano was also deceived after watching a YouTube video in which Musk claimed that people could start investing in cryptocurrency with as little as a few hundred dollars and become wealthy. The video was later confirmed to be fake, and Pugliano lost 17,000 CAD ($12,457).

“I ended up investing a lot more than I had planned to after getting into financial difficulty.”

According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, fraudulent investment schemes resulted in a loss of 148 million CAD ($108.45) for investors across the country in the first half of 2024. The majority of these schemes involved cryptocurrency.

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