Scammers are paying Meta to spread fake ABC News articles

Link copiedShareShare articleScammers are using fake articles to convince Australians to put money into fraudulent investment platforms. Some victims have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to the industrial-scale operation, which spends big on Facebook ads to reach potential targets. Here is how the scam works, as well as some clues about who is behind it. It paints a picture of a dramatic "on-air revelation", using an AI-generated image of Australian celebrities facing off. There are dozens of ads just like this one, often involving senior ABC reporters and popular politicians. Clicking on one will take you to the centrepiece of the scam: an almost perfect clone of the ABC News website. All the trimmings of the website are pixel-perfect, all the way down to the iview and Listen tabs. Each variation on the fake story will describe a scene where a public figure is caught hiding a "secret approach" to investing. They use AI-generated photos, often made to look like they're taken from behind the scenes on a TV set. In one of them, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has his personal bank details displayed by hackers while appearing on Insiders. In another, he is confronted by Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie for talking down to everyday people. The articles all use the kind of punchy language that is characteristic of generative AI. "Lambie's fist hit the desk so hard the water glasses shook," one article says. The short sentences and dramatic scenes all come with a peppering of genuine facts, like that Mr Taylor was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. All of this drama is to set the groundwork for the entire point of the scam: spruiking a fraudulent investment platform. Near the bottom of the article, there's an "Editor's note" explaining that the platform has been purportedly investigated and found to be "legitimate" by the ABC's reporters. Do not be fooled; Hexonic 365 is a scam, designed to defraud you of your money. Alongside the fake editor's notes, there is a warning that time is running out for prospective investors. This is a classic tactic used by scammers to encourage impulsive behaviour from their targets. Click the Hexonix 365 link, and you'll land on what looks like an investment platform. Its marketing materials promise high returns, alongside testimonials from other Australian celebrities. Fill out the form and the phone will start to ring. On the line will be a scammer, trying to steal as much of your money as they can. The same scam is popping up in countries across the globe, with almost identical campaigns targeting Canada, the UK and many European nations. It is being run on an industrial scale, using sophisticated online infrastructure, as part of a criminal ecosystem spanning Europe and Israel. It is estimated to have stolen at least $350 million globally. One Australian man told the ABC he lost over $500,000 to the scam. "My world ended as I knew it," he said. Another lost over $100,000 to an earlier iteration of the same scam back in 2024. Contact Julian Fell at tips@jtfell.com if you have any information about this scam. Key to the scammers' success is their ability to reach potential targets. We reliably found ads on Facebook linking to the fake ABC News site across April, May and June. Many of these ads remained active on Meta's platforms for several days before being removed. When one batch was taken down, another account took over and posted another suite of ads linking to the same fake articles. Meta, which owns Facebook, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Catriona Lowe, deputy head of the ACCC, says that digital platforms are one of several sectors that need to cooperate to truly stamp out investment scams. "We think that all of the platforms, including Meta, need to do more to protect their customers … from the dangers that are on their sites," she says. Scammers use sophisticated "cloaking" tactics to avoid detection by platforms like Facebook and Instagram, says Jerome Dangu, CTO of Confiant, a company that tracks malicious advertising across the internet. "[These scammers are] abusing the legitimate ad industry," says Mr Dangu, "and using it to funnel traffic to these scams." But that doesn't mean that nothing can be done about it. Celebrities have been asking Facebook's owner, Meta, to intervene, and stop their image being used for these scams for years. "I've complained to Facebook and Instagram. They do absolutely nothing," Dick Smith told ABC Media Watch in 2023. Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest has been fighting Meta in the courts over deepfakes of him proliferating on the company's platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. And yet these ads continue to proliferate. Last year, a Reuters investigation uncovered one reason why this might be: Meta is earning a fortune from scam ads. Documents from inside Meta reportedly showed the tech giant had projected that 10 per cent of its revenue in 2024 would come from "ads for sca

Scammers are paying Meta to spread fake ABC News articles

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Scammers are paying Meta to spread fake ABC News articles

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