Australian regulators warn of increasingly convincing deepfake videos, cloned voices, and fake news elements used by scammers to deceive investors, with a surge in related crime reports highlighting new risks in digital finance.
A fabricated interview involving ABC finance presenter Alan Kohler and Reserve Bank of Australia governor Michele Bullock has highlighted a fast-growing strain of online investment fraud that the corporate regulator says is becoming harder to spot.
According to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, scammers are increasingly using deepfake images, cloned voices and fake news stories to make bogus investment offers look credible. The regulator said polished branding and convincing testimonials are no guarantee that an opportunity is genuine, warning that a quick internet search is no longer enough to check legitimacy. In the alleged Kohler-Bullock article, the pair were depicted in a heated studio exchange over a supposed trading system, even though no such interview took place.
ASIC said the tactics are becoming more industrialised. Rather than relying on a single fake video or image, fraudsters are building entire networks of deception, including spoofed websites, fabricated reviews and social media adverts designed to drive victims to bogus platforms. Once people hand over their details, the scams can escalate into follow-up phone calls, pressure to deposit money and, in some cases, small withdrawals or payments meant to build trust.
The regulator’s latest figures point to the scale of the problem. It said it removed 19,400 scams last year, up 182 per cent, including a 279 per cent jump in phishing takedowns and 7,051 fake investment platforms, up 151 per cent. In April, ASIC said it had coordinated the removal of 11,964 phishing and investment scam websites in 2025, an average of 32 a day, while in August it warned that fake celebrity endorsements were increasingly being used in pump-and-dump schemes and crypto-asset scams.
Kohler has been caught up in this sort of fraud before, including a separate fake AI-generated video that paired him with Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn. He said platforms that host such material, and the AI systems used to create it, should face heavy fines. ASIC’s Sarah Court urged investors to check for an Australian Financial Services licence number and verify it independently through the regulator’s public registers, adding that if the details do not match, people should not invest.
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