Deepfake of Former Prime Minister of Malta Joseph Muscat Allegedly Promotes Nord Invest Scam

A reported doctored video falsely depicts former Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat promoting the crypto platform Nord Invest. The manipulated footage, originally from a 2013 Sky News interview, was overlaid with AI-generated audio to mimic Muscat’s voice endorsing a fraudulent scheme. The video was reportedly shared through Facebook.

Risk classification

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

The incident involves the creation of deepfake videos of public figures to promote fraudulent investment platforms, aiming to deceive individuals for financial gain.

Additional risk subdomains

• 3.1 False or misleading information: The deepfake videos generated false information by fabricating endorsements from political figures to mislead the public.

Causal factors

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

The scam was intentionally created and distributed by human malicious actors using post-deployment AI voice cloning and deepfake technologies to defraud the public.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 3 Limited Risk

Limited Risk: The report describes AI-generated content such as deepfakes, which are subject to transparency obligations under the EU AI Act.

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 impersonating Joseph Muscat, Unknown scammers
• Alleged harmed parties: Joseph Muscat, General public of Malta

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

Malicious content

Reported: Yes, the report describes the creation and distribution of deepfake videos on Facebook to facilitate financial fraud.

Directly caused: The creation of AI-generated deepfake videos of Joseph Muscat and Robert Abela to promote fraudulent platforms.

Inferred additional harm: The potential proliferation of more doctored videos of Maltese public figures as AI tools become more widespread.

Epistemic

Reported: Yes, the report describes AI-driven misinformation where fake videos depict politicians endorsing crypto/oil platforms.

Directly caused: The fabrication of video and audio showing former PM Muscat and current PM Abela promoting investment platforms they did not endorse.

Inferred additional harm: Erosion of public trust in video evidence and official communications from public figures due to the spread of realistic deepfakes.

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 2
• People reportedly harmed: 2
• People reportedly exposed: 100

Potential causes

Technology

• AI Deepfake Voice Generation: AI-generated audio track mimics politician's voice to sound authentic.
• Lip-Sync Video Editing: Deepfake technology aligns lip movements with the fake audio script.

Data Inputs

• Exploitation of Public Video: Genuine video footage from past interviews is repurposed for scams.

Human Factors

• Public Trust in Celebrities: Viewers trust well-known figures, making the scam more convincing.

Process and Methods

• Inadequate Platform Moderation: Facebook pages easily distribute doctored videos without detection.
• Creation of Fraudulent Pages: Scammers easily set up fake pages like KETO to spread videos.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The report clearly details the nature of the deepfake videos, the platforms used, the specific politicians targeted, and the fraudulent intent. There is no ambiguity about the fact that these are AI-generated deepfakes used for financial scams.
• Ambiguities identified: The specific AI tools or models used to generate the deepfakes are not identified.
• Alternative interpretations: None.

Deepfake videos of Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela and former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat were circulated on Facebook to promote fraudulent investment schemes. While the impersonation of state leaders carries inherent risks to public trust, the incident was a financially motivated scam rather than a coordinated state-sponsored attack, resulting in minor national security implications.

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

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. The incident represents an ongoing, strategic concern regarding the proliferation of consumer-grade deepfake technology rather than an active national security crisis.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. The AI voice cloning and lip-syncing systems functioned strictly as tools directed by human malicious actors.
• Novelty: Established threat. Using AI-generated deepfakes of public figures to promote financial scams is an established threat vector with many historical precedents.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. The incident was a digital financial scam and posed no threat to physical systems, critical infrastructure, or human safety.
• Information security: Minor. While deepfakes of political leaders were used, the intent was financial fraud rather than state-sponsored information warfare. It represents a minor impact manageable through standard fact-checking.
• Sovereignty: Minor. The deepfakes impersonated current and former Prime Ministers, but did not disrupt core government operations, decision-making, or electoral systems.
• Economic security: Minor. The fraud targeted individual citizens for financial gain with a minimum 250 euro investment, but did not threaten Malta's broader financial stability or strategic industries.
• Societal stability: Minor. The scam exploits public trust in political figures, contributing to epistemic harm and erosion of trust in digital media, but did not threaten large-scale societal stability.