Sam Bankman-Fried deepfake attempts to scam investors impacted by FTX
A faked video of Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has circulated on Twitter attempting to scam investors affected by the exchange’s bankruptcy.
Created using programs to emulate Bankman-Fried’s likeness and voice, the poorly made “deepfake” video attempts to direct users to a malicious site under the promise of a “giveaway” that will “double your cryptocurrency.”
Over the weekend, a verified account posing as FTX founder SBF posted dozens of copies of this deepfake video offering FTX users "compensation for the loss" in a phishing scam designed to drain their crypto wallets pic.twitter.com/3KoAPRJsya
The video uses appears to be old interview footage of Bankman-Fried and used a voice emulator to create the illusion of him saying “as you know our F-DEX [sic] exchange is going bankrupt, but I hasten to inform all users that you should not panic.”
The fake Bankman-Fried then directs users to a website saying FTX has “prepared a giveaway for you in which you can double your cryptocurrency” in an apparent "double-your-crypto" scam where users send crypto under the promise they'll receive double back.
A now-suspended Twitter account with the handle “S4GE_ETH” is understood to have been compromised, leading to scammers posting a link to the scam website — which now appears to have been taken offline.
The crypto community has pointed to the fact that scammers were able to pay a small fee in order to get Twitter’s “blue tick” verification in order to appear authentic.
Meanwhile, the video received widespread mockery for its poor production quality with one Twitter user ridiculing how the scam production pronounced “FTX” in the video, saying they’re “definitely using [...] ‘Effed-X’ from now on.”
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