No TVE presenter is promoting a Repsol “super platform” to invest money.
However, a video showing journalist Marina Ribel during a news report has circulated in recent days on the Instagram stories of several users.
The presenter is in the
24 Hours Channel
studio while, apparently, reading one of the news of the day: “The Repsol company has announced the creation of a new super platform thanks to which now any Spaniard can completely forget about work.”
Below, a sign explains the economic conditions of the business: by investing an initial 250 euros you can get 1,500 euros a day and more than 25,000 a month.
This is a scam carried out with artificial intelligence.
“It seemed like abstruse news for a serious news channel, so I paid more attention to the images.
Then I realized that it was a
deepfake
video , but the voice is the same as that of the presenter,” Marián Sánchez, a 41-year-old content creator, who frequently warns about this type of scam on her Instagram account, explains by phone. .
When she tried to click on the link that appears at the bottom of the stories, a tab opened with the logo and graphic that the
El Mundo
newspaper has on its website.
The fake news was the same as what was advertised in the video, but the domain was not that of the newspaper she pretended to be.
“I reported it the second time, but it was too late.
On the same day I have come across three other similar cases, with different public figures,” adds Sánchez.
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These types of scams have filled social networks in recent months.
At the end of the year, it was impossible to browse X (formerly Twitter) without encountering alleged publications from different newspapers, including
EL PAÍS, with photos of celebrities to whom phrases that they had never said were attributed.
“Martiño Rivas surprised everyone in the studio by revealing how he is earning an extra 128,000 euros every month,” was the headline of one of these news items that received 2.2 million impressions on X in November.
On the social network, a photo of the actor appeared during an interview in
El Hormiguero
, but when you opened the link you reached a fake page with the appearance of EL PAÍS, where an American company was trying to sell cryptocurrencies.
“The official website of Quantum AI claims that it can generate high profits for any user by running a unique trading algorithm.
This algorithm allows the user to automatically trade with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,” says the false article signed by an editor of the newspaper.
Among those affected are actors and presenters such as David Broncano, Pablo Motos, Susana Grisso, Alberto Chicote or Antonio Resines, who would have starred in fake videos in which their voice is simulated to recommend this type of investments, in addition to appropriating the identity of national media outlets to obtain data and investors' money.
“In general terms, we are identifying an increase in publications whose purpose is to misinform.
But surely the most problematic aspect is the appearance of
deepfakes
, because they are more difficult to identify.
It is very easy to fall victim to these scams that are increasingly sophisticated,” emphasizes Ruth García, Cybersecurity for Citizens technician at the National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE).
Since then, this newspaper has compiled and reported more than a hundred publications of this genre.
In some cases, these are photos of celebrities on different television shows who claim to have found a way to make easy money, and which redirect to false newspaper pages.
On some occasions, the link begins leading to real news, but after a few hours the URL is replaced by that of a fraudulent website.
Sometimes these are profiles of hair salons, sales of products of different genders, or travel influencers.
In all cases, they are accounts that have been recently created, with barely any followers and that pay for X's premium services (which allow, among other things, to obtain the blue
check
and earn money from the views of their publications).
No moderation in X
The strategy of impersonating media outlets and falsifying one of their news became popular during the
cryptocurrency
boom .
On Elon Musk's Twitter, who bought the social network more than a year ago, this scam has found the perfect breeding ground to proliferate again.
As soon as he arrived, the businessman massively fired the content moderators, at the same time that he reinstated those profiles that had been expelled for hate speech or spreading hoaxes.
As a result of these decisions, many well-known firms suspended their advertising on the platform or drastically reduced it, leaving room for other advertisers, who have filled the social network with campaigns promoting scams.
Although they are no longer found with the same frequency as a few months ago, these types of publications continue to circulate noticeably.
Even after the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) announced an investigation into Elon Musk's platform for advertising by fraudulent entities, by not verifying "that the advertiser has a license to offer investment services and that it is not warned as financial beach bar or pirate entity,” as he explained in a statement.
In addition, the supervisor of the Spanish market included in its circular of financial beach bars several web addresses of Quantum AI, the firm that used without authorization images of actors and falsified screenshots from the EL PAÍS website to promote itself.
“These are cyclical campaigns, which are within the scheme of false investments.
Right now it is the biggest scam in circulation, and it is carried out by very organized and serious criminal groups,” acknowledges Alberto Redondo, head of the Civil Guard's criminal cyber intelligence group.
The scam consists of different phases.
At first, there is a group that is in charge of looking for victims, hooking them through social networks with false promises of investment.
After agreeing to give up their data to proceed with the alleged purchase of cryptocurrencies, there is another group of the gang that begins to collect this sensitive data to sell it to external platforms.
“In some cases, they even go so far as to impersonate your identity, with all the risks that this entails,” adds Redondo.
Exiting this network is complicated, since every time victims try to withdraw their investment, the scammers try to convince them that it is not a good time and that the ideal would be to invest more.
“When they finally realize that they have been scammed and report it, recovering the lost money is impossible, because these companies disappear,” he explains.
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