Reported Use of Deepfake Video Impersonating Owen Wilson in Romance Scam with Fake Job Payments

A Reddit user reported in May 2025 that her mother is being groomed by scammers using an AI-generated deepfake video impersonating actor Owen Wilson. The scam reportedly began on a game app (Yahtzee with Friends) and shifted to WhatsApp voice calls, with the victim promised a fake Warner Bros job paying small sums via Cash App. The scammer allegedly claims he will buy a house for the victim's family as part of the deception. The video is cited as the main “proof” of authenticity.

Risk classification

• Primary risk domain: 4 Malicious actors
• Primary risk subdomain: 4.3 Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation

The incident involves malicious actors using AI-generated deepfake videos of celebrities to conduct highly targeted romance and financial scams against specific victims.

Causal factors

• Entity: Human
• Intent: Intentional
• Timing: Post-deployment

The scams were intentionally executed by human malicious actors using deployed AI deepfake generation tools to defraud victims.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 3 Limited Risk

Risk Level 3: Limited Risk. The reports describe the use of 'AI-generated videos' and 'deepfake clips' of celebrities, which falls under the category of AI-generated content requiring transparency obligations under the Act.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI system: unspecified
• AI purpose: Deepfake Video Generation; Voice Generation
• Behaviour type: Tool
• Alleged developer: Unknown voice cloning technology developers, Unknown deepfake technology developers
• Alleged deployer: Unknown scammers impersonating Owen Wilson, Unknown scammers
• Alleged harmed parties: Unnamed mother of Reddit user Sharp_Ad_8771, Reddit user Sharp_Ad_8771, Players of Yahtzee with Friends, Owen Wilson, General public

Harm severity

Severity ratings are based on this scale.

Highest direct severity in any category: Minor. Severity is scored from Negligible to Catastrophic in each harm category, for harm the reports describe as caused directly or indirectly by the AI system.

• Physical: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Infrastructure: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Property: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Financial: direct Negligible, indirect Minor
• Environmental: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Malicious content: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Differential treatment: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Civil rights: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Democracy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Privacy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Psychological: direct Negligible, indirect Minor
• Epistemic: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

Financial

Reported: Yes, the reports describe significant financial losses across multiple occurrences, totaling approximately £701,200 (plus over £1,000 for Davis's friend) across the described cases, averaging about £233,733 per main occurrence.

Indirectly caused: Davis lost £200 in Apple gift cards, his friend lost over £1,000, and a French woman was scammed out of £700,000. The average financial loss per main occurrence is approximately £233,733.

Inferred additional harm: Given the 34 other victims of the Nigerian scammer and the general rise in these deepfake scams, total financial losses are likely much higher, potentially in the millions of pounds.

Malicious content

Reported: Yes, the reports describe the creation and dissemination of malicious deepfake videos of celebrities used to deceive victims.

Directly caused: Scammers generated and sent fake videos of Jennifer Aniston, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Owen Wilson directly to targets via social media and messaging apps.

Inferred additional harm: It is highly likely that thousands of similar malicious deepfake videos are being generated and distributed to targets globally.

Psychological

Reported: The reports explicitly describe psychological distress, depression, and mental health impacts on the victims.

Indirectly caused: Davis, who suffers from depression, reported that the relentless targeting took a toll on his mental health. The French woman lost her marriage and her mental health due to the year-long romance scam.

Inferred additional harm: It is highly likely that other victims, including the 34 unnamed victims and the Reddit user's mother, experienced significant emotional distress, anxiety, and feelings of violation.

Epistemic

Reported: Yes, the reports describe the generation of highly realistic fake videos and identities that make it difficult for victims to distinguish between real and fake online.

Directly caused: AI-generated deepfake videos of celebrities were used to fabricate evidence of identity, leading victims to believe they were interacting with real celebrities.

Inferred additional harm: The proliferation of such deepfakes contributes to a broader erosion of trust in digital media and online interactions.

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 3
• People reportedly harmed: 38
• People reportedly exposed: 38

Potential causes

Technology

• State-of-the-Art Video Gen: Models like Veo 3 generate highly realistic videos that deceive victims.
• Deepfake Audio and Video Synthesis: AI synthesized robotic voice and static eyes that mimic real celebrities.
• High-Fidelity Image Manipulation: Scammers use AI to doctor selfies and IDs to look highly convincing.

Data Inputs

• Publicly Available Celebrity Data: Abundant online photos and videos of celebs are used to train and feed AI.
• Social Engineering Information: Personal details like family names are harvested to tailor the scam.
• Fake ID and Document Images: Doctored driving licenses and certificates used to build false trust.

Human Factors

• Cognitive Vulnerabilities: Victims suffering from depression or isolation are highly susceptible.
• Emotional Manipulation: Flattery and romance triggers exploit victims' emotional desires.
• Lack of AI Literacy: Victims fail to recognize robotic tones, static eyes, and pixelation.

Process and Methods

• Scaled Phishing via AI: AI allows scammers to automate and scale up highly convincing phishing.
• Cross-Platform Scam Operations: Scammers shift victims from games to WhatsApp, CashApp, and voice calls.
• Financial Siphoning Tactics: Using non-refundable gift cards and small CashApp payments to build trust.

Regulatory Environment

• Lack of Deepfake Regulation: Insufficient legal frameworks to stop the creation and spread of deepfakes.
• Cross-Border Enforcement Limits: Jurisdiction issues make tracking international scammers highly difficult.
• Weak Platform Moderation Laws: Gaps in laws fail to hold platforms accountable for hosting fake accounts.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The reports provide consistent, detailed accounts of multiple victims targeted by celebrity deepfake scams, including specific financial losses, platforms used, and psychological impacts. The role of AI as a tool for generating deepfake videos is clearly stated across all sources.
• Ambiguities identified: The exact AI models used by the scammers are not specified, though Google's Veo is mentioned generally in Report 2 as an example of advanced video generation.
• Alternative interpretations: None. The events are clearly romance and financial scams leveraging synthetic media.

This incident involves the use of AI-generated celebrity deepfakes to conduct highly targeted romance and financial scams across multiple nations, resulting in significant individual financial losses and psychological distress. While representing a serious criminal evolution in synthetic media exploitation, it carries low national security implications as it does not target critical infrastructure, state sovereignty, or national economic systems.

• Overall national security impact: Minor
• Scope: Multiple nations
• Primary target: No clear primary
• Other affected: United Kingdom, France, United States
• Alleged perpetrator: Unknown

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. The threat represents an ongoing, evolving criminal capability rather than an immediate national security crisis requiring urgent government response.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. Human scammers actively directed the operations, using AI tools solely to generate synthetic video and voice content to support their deception.
• Novelty: Evolved capability. This represents an evolved capability where traditional romance and employment scams are enhanced by increasingly realistic AI-generated synthetic media.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. No physical systems, infrastructure, or human safety were threatened by these digital scam activities.
• Information security: Minor. While the incident involves sophisticated deepfakes, they were used for financial fraud rather than coordinated state-sponsored disinformation campaigns or intelligence compromise.
• Sovereignty: Negligible. No government decision-making, electoral systems, or sovereign state operations were disrupted or targeted.
• Economic security: Minor. The fraud caused significant individual financial losses, including one victim losing 700,000 pounds, but does not threaten national financial systems or strategic economic sectors.
• Societal stability: Minor. The scams caused severe emotional distress and financial harm to individual victims, but did not threaten broader social cohesion or human rights at a population scale.