Purported Deepfake Impersonating Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides Reportedly Defrauded Citizens of Thousands of Euros

Around December 2025, Cypriot authorities reported that scammers used a purportedly AI-generated deepfake video impersonating President Nicos Christodoulides and other officials to promote a fraudulent investment platform. The video deceived about 15 citizens, who each lost between €10,000 and €15,000. Officials warned that malicious AI impersonation schemes are increasing and that citizens currently lack effective protection.

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 deepfakes to conduct targeted financial fraud and scams against specific victims for personal gain.

Additional risk subdomains

• 3.1 False or misleading information: The deepfake videos generated and spread false information, leading victims to believe they were investing in legitimate platforms endorsed by public figures.

Causal factors

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

The incident was caused by human scammers who intentionally created and deployed deepfake videos post-deployment to defraud citizens.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 3 Limited Risk

Risk Level 3: Limited Risk. The report describes the creation and dissemination of deepfakes, which are subject to transparency and labeling obligations under the EU AI 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 in Cyprus, Unknown scammers impersonating Nikos Christodoulides, Unknown scammers
• Alleged harmed parties: Nikos Christodoulides, General public of Cyprus, General public, Epistemic integrity

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 Minor, indirect Negligible
• 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 Minor
• Privacy: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Psychological: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Epistemic: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

Financial

Reported: The report explicitly describes financial losses where 15 people lost between 10,000 and 15,000 euros each, totaling approximately 150,000 to 225,000 euros.

Directly caused: 15 citizens in Cyprus lost between 10,000 and 15,000 euros each, averaging 12,500 euros per person, due to the deepfake investment scam.

Inferred additional harm: It is highly likely that other individuals fell victim to these or similar deepfake scams, leading to additional unquantified financial losses.

Malicious content

Reported: Yes, the report describes deepfake videos created to impersonate public figures for malicious purposes.

Directly caused: Deepfake videos of President Nicos Christodoulides, Donald Trump, and other high-profile figures were created and distributed on social media platforms.

Inferred additional harm: Further deepfake videos and malicious social engineering content were likely generated and spread.

Democracy

Reported: Yes, the report mentions concerns about propaganda videos and the potential for state-backed social engineering to manipulate elections.

Indirectly caused: The use of deepfakes of political figures like President Christodoulides and Donald Trump can erode trust in democratic institutions and leaders.

Inferred additional harm: Continued proliferation of political deepfakes could severely undermine democratic processes and public trust.

Privacy

Reported: Yes, the report mentions the unauthorized use of people's likenesses in AI material.

Directly caused: The likenesses and voices of several high-profile individuals were used without consent to create deepfakes.

Epistemic

Reported: Yes, the report describes deepfake videos misleading citizens.

Directly caused: Citizens were misled by highly realistic deepfake videos of politicians and business leaders, with some believing Donald Trump would save Cyprus.

Inferred additional harm: The widespread availability of realistic deepfakes erodes the shared consensus reality and public trust in digital media.

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 1
• People reportedly harmed: 15
• People reportedly exposed: 1000

Potential causes

Technology

• Advanced Deepfake Generation: AI models can generate highly realistic videos and voices of public figures.
• Lack of Detection Tools: Even experts lack tools or mechanisms to detect sophisticated AI content.
• Accessible Malicious AI Tools: Scammers can easily pay subscriptions to acquire powerful AI tools.

Data Inputs

• Public Media of Figures: Abundant public video and audio of politicians are used to train deepfakes.

Human Factors

• Limited Public Awareness: Citizens struggle to identify subtle visual errors like hand anomalies.
• Susceptibility to Manipulation: Social engineering exploits trust in high-profile figures.

Process and Methods

• Lack of Verification: Victims fail to call back or verify information before sending money.
• Inadequate Platform Filtering: Social media platforms lack automatic filtering for scam deepfakes.

Regulatory Environment

• Legislative Gaps: Current laws do not criminalize unauthorized AI use of people's likeness.
• No Mandatory AI Labeling: There are no enforced requirements for platforms to label AI-generated media.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The report clearly details the nature of the scams, the victims, the financial losses, and the specific public figures impersonated. While the exact AI models used are not specified, the description of the deepfakes and their impact is unambiguous.
• Ambiguities identified: The specific AI tools or platforms used to generate the deepfakes are not identified.
• Alternative interpretations: None.

Scammers used AI-generated deepfakes of the Cypriot President and other high-profile figures to conduct financial fraud, stealing up to 225,000 euros from citizens. While the incident demonstrates the evolving threat of synthetic media for social engineering, its national security impact remains minor as it did not target critical infrastructure, state sovereignty, or broader economic stability.

• Overall national security impact: Minor
• Scope: Single nation
• Primary target: Cyprus
• Alleged perpetrator: Unknown

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. The immediate financial scam is resolved, but the broader threat of deepfake social engineering represents an ongoing strategic concern.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. AI was utilized strictly as a generation tool under direct human control to create deepfakes; the system did not act autonomously.
• Novelty: Evolved capability. Represents an evolution of existing phishing and financial fraud tactics utilizing more sophisticated and accessible deepfake generation tools.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. No physical infrastructure, kinetic targeting, or critical systems were affected by these deepfake videos.
• Information security: Minor. Deepfakes impersonated state and international leaders, but the primary intent was localized financial fraud rather than a coordinated state-sponsored information warfare campaign.
• Sovereignty: Minor. Impersonation of the Cypriot President and other public figures represents a minor challenge to state authority, but core government functions and decision-making remained intact.
• Economic security: Minor. While the scam caused financial loss to individual citizens, totaling up to 225,000 euros, it does not threaten the broader economic stability of Cyprus or its strategic industries.
• Societal stability: Minor. The incident eroded public trust in digital media and state figures through realistic deepfakes, but did not lead to large-scale social unrest or systematic discrimination.