Video with Reportedly AI-Generated Media Purported to Show Croatian Immunologist Stipan Jonjić Promoting Anti-Parasite Product on Facebook

A Facebook page reportedly posted a video that purported to show Croatian immunologist Stipan Jonjić endorsing an anti-parasite product and recommending it over conventional treatment. The clip was reported to use AI-generated or manipulated media, and Jonjić denied involvement. A woman was reported to have purchased the product after seeing the ad.

Risk classification

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

The incident involves the unauthorized use of a public figure's likeness and voice in an AI-generated deepfake to perpetrate a financial scam and deceive consumers into buying a fake product.

Causal factors

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

The incident was caused by malicious human actors who intentionally used deployed AI deepfake generation tools to create a fraudulent video for financial gain.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 3 Limited Risk

Limited Risk: The incident involves the creation of a deepfake video, which falls under Risk Level 3 (Limited Risk) as it is AI-generated content that requires transparency obligations to inform users of its synthetic nature.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI system: None named
• 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, Sepenuhnya alami Facebook page
• Alleged harmed parties: Stipan Jonjić, People seeking medical advice, General public of Croatia, 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 Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Environmental: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Malicious content: direct Minor, indirect Minor
• 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 Negligible
• Epistemic: direct Minor, indirect Minor
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

Malicious content

Reported: The report explicitly describes malicious content created and spread directly by the incident.

Directly caused: An AI-generated deepfake video of Dr. Stipan Jonjic was created and uploaded to Facebook to promote a fraudulent medical product.

Indirectly caused: The video was shared thousands of times on Facebook, spreading the malicious scam to a wide audience.

Epistemic

Reported: The report explicitly describes epistemic harm through the spread of medical misinformation and fake endorsements.

Directly caused: The deepfake video fabricated statements by Dr. Jonjic, falsely claiming that parasites cause HPV and most deaths, and that a specific herbal remedy cures them.

Indirectly caused: The video was shared thousands of times, potentially misleading viewers about medical facts and the doctor's actual endorsements.

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 1
• People reportedly harmed: 2
• People reportedly exposed: 1000

Potential causes

Technology

• AI Voice Cloning: AI tools replicated the doctor's voice with high accuracy.
• Deepfake Video Generation: AI synthesized lip movements to match fabricated speech.
• Deep Learning Tools: Advanced algorithms enable easy replication of human targets.

Data Inputs

• Accessible Training Data: Scammers used public YouTube videos to train the AI model.

Human Factors

• Trust in Authority: Victims believed the advice because it came from a known doctor.
• Detection Difficulty: Deepfakes are increasingly difficult for normal users to spot.

Process and Methods

• Weak Platform Moderation: The social network failed to flag or block the deepfake video.
• Unverified Page Ad Posting: Suspicious new pages can easily upload and distribute scam media.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The report clearly identifies the nature of the incident as an AI-generated deepfake scam, confirmed by the impersonated individual, and details the resulting financial harm to a consumer.
• Ambiguities identified: The specific AI tool used to generate the deepfake is not named, and the exact amount of money lost by the victim is not quantified.
• Alternative interpretations: None. The evidence clearly points to an intentional deepfake scam.

A deepfake video of a Croatian immunologist was used on Facebook to promote a fraudulent medical product, resulting in minor financial loss for a consumer. The incident represents a common cyber-enabled commercial fraud scam using AI tools, posing negligible threats to national security but highlighting the ongoing challenge of synthetic media in public information spaces.

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

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. The incident represents an ongoing strategic concern regarding the proliferation of deepfakes rather than an active crisis.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. AI tools were used strictly as instruments by human actors to generate synthetic media, with no autonomous decision-making.
• Novelty: Established threat. AI-generated deepfake scams targeting public figures for financial fraud are an established and frequently observed threat.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. No physical systems, infrastructure, or human safety capabilities were targeted or affected by this medical scam.
• Information security: Minor. While the incident involved AI-generated deepfake media, it was a localized financial scam rather than a coordinated state-sponsored information warfare campaign.
• Sovereignty: Negligible. The incident did not target or impact state authority, electoral processes, or core government decision-making.
• Economic security: Negligible. Financial loss was limited to individual scam victims purchasing a fake product, with no systemic threat to economic or technological security.
• Societal stability: Minor. The deepfake spread medical misinformation and identity theft of a public medical figure, causing minor localized concern but no large-scale instability.