Facebook scammers use fake VOA article to push Russian cryptocurrency scheme

When American blimpish commentator Tucker Carlson interviewed Russian IT entrepreneur Pavel Durov successful April, helium had an further unexpected audience: scammers.

After the video was published, a phony Russian-language transcript of the interrogation tried to pull “investors” to a cryptocurrency strategy that promised monthly net of $13,000.

That strategy came to VOA’s attraction due to the fact that its creators utilized a transcript of a VOA Russian nonfiction leafage successful their attempts to defraud net users.

It is 1 of galore examples of morganatic media outlets being exploited for fraudulent purposes.

These schemes bargain advertizing utilizing Facebook accounts — often hacked without the user’s cognition — spanning countries similar the Philippines, Mexico and Afghanistan.

The strategy and rhetoric travel a pattern, according to Jordan Liles, astatine American fact-checking tract Snopes.com.

"There are truthful galore scams online that airs arsenic morganatic publishers,” helium told VOA. “Name immoderate steadfast – they’ve astir apt been utilized successful scams to effort to fool radical who don’t look astatine their web code bar.”

There is nary denotation that Durov oregon Carlson is progressive successful the scheme. VOA reached retired to them for remark but received nary response.

In a statement, Facebook genitor institution Meta told VOA it takes scams seriously.

“Fraud is simply a occupation that’s ever persisted with caller technology,” the institution wrote. “But that’s precisely wherefore Meta ever has — and ever volition — instrumentality a hard enactment against scams, fraud and maltreatment successful each of its forms to assistance support it disconnected of our platforms.”

Scammers person antecedently posed arsenic Voice of America, utilizing deepfakes successful 2 abstracted cases that targeted VOA Russian journalists.

Those cases relied connected artificial intelligence.

In contrast, the Durov scam takes a distinctly low-tech approach: It uses a Q&A-style substance transcript successful Russian that falsely claims to beryllium a “continuation” of Carlson’s interview.

The laminitis of Russian societal media tract VKontakte and messenger app Telegram, Durov is simply a well-known tech entrepreneur. That makes him harder to impersonate.

According to an April 2024 study by the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, portion deepfakes of nationalist figures “are comparatively routine,” they besides thin not to beryllium believable.

Layers of lies

At the halfway of the cryptocurrency scam impersonating VOA is an intriguing committedness and a way of stolen accounts spanning the globe.

The fake communicative claims that Durov told Carlson astir his latest creation: ProTON-Invest, an unfastened programme that volition let adjacent the slightest financially literate idiosyncratic to gain ample sums of wealth with minimal effort.

VOA attempted to hint the origins of the ProTON-Invest strategy and its promotional content, but the fraudsters had done a bully occupation covering their tracks.

When VOA approached the owners of the Facebook accounts that bought advertizing for the scheme, those who responded said they had mislaid entree to their pages.

One of the accounts, called “Simply News” successful Russian, had antecedently been the leafage of a concern successful Calumpit, a provincial metropolis successful the Philippines, that sold location plants and baked goods during the coronavirus pandemic.

The business’s co-owner, Dannie Roxas, told VOA that the leafage had been hacked.

"We bash not person immoderate entree to it and we cannot instrumentality it backmost anymore,” she said successful a Telegram message. “We already person reported it.”

Another Facebook leafage promoting the scam (but without the fake VOA story) was “Golden News.” It formerly belonged to a question bureau successful Kabul, Afghanistan.

VOA wrote to the bureau implicit WhatsApp. A antheral who did not place himself said the astir caller posts were not from the institution and they had apt been hacked.

When VOA inquired further, helium declined to supply much information.

VOA besides identified respective much accounts sharing the fake transcript oregon pushing the fraud scheme. Two appeared to beryllium to a graphic decorator successful the Punjab portion of Pakistan. He did not respond to a petition for comment.

Another belonged to a Mexican rapper. The antheral down that leafage did not respond to a petition for remark but had antecedently written from his idiosyncratic Facebook leafage that his euphony relationship was hacked.

According to Facebook’s Page Transparency data, the stolen accounts often had managers supposedly located successful aggregate countries, including Vietnam, Bangladesh, Ukraine, China and the U.S.

But it’s unclear however Facebook determines wherever the managers are located. Meta did not respond to a question from VOA astir that.

If the determination is based connected an IP address, that tin easy beryllium spoofed utilizing a virtual backstage web (VPN), a basal instrumentality for maintaining privateness online.

Trouble warring back

At its core, the ProTON-Invest scam appears to payment from the existent online environment.

When hackers instrumentality implicit an account, they often alteration the password, betterment email and telephone number. That makes it highly hard to retake the account.

After cryptocurrency scammers took implicit his Facebook relationship successful aboriginal 2024, it took writer Yuri – who asked to beryllium identified lone by his archetypal sanction to sermon the hack without his employer’s support – astir six months to regain control. Ultimately, helium had to prosecute a lawyer to prosecute with Facebook genitor institution Meta.

“If the lawyer hadn’t helped me, I would person spent a agelong clip penning to Meta,” Yuri said.

The scams are besides comparatively inexpensive to create.

Facebook advertizing costs precise little, according to Snopes’ Liles. Meanwhile, radical who autumn unfortunate to the scams springiness them hundreds oregon adjacent thousands of dollars.

“If [the scammer] spent lone $100, their scam has, unfortunately, been successful,” Liles told VOA.

So, however tin net users separate a scam from existent VOA?

Besides looking for an close VOA URL successful the web code of immoderate expected VOA page, users should besides look for circumstantial signs that VOA societal media pages are legitimate.

“In our branding, VOA uses circumstantial colors, and the societal media accounts’ names are the aforesaid crossed platforms. On Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, look for the verification cheque mark, and travel links to different societal media platforms from our website oregon authoritative societal media accounts,” a typical of VOA Public Relations said. “On X, not each of our accounts are verified due to the fact that they necessitate a paid subscription, truthful ever crosscheck the nexus connected the website oregon authoritative societal media accounts.”