The European Union is facing a wave of cyber fraud “unprecedented in scale.” In recent weeks, Meta’s platforms (Facebook and Instagram) have been inundated with high-tech deepfake videos, targeting the wallets of ordinary citizens and the reputations of Europe’s top officials.
The fraudulent scheme is astonishing in its audacity. Using advanced AI algorithms, the attackers create videos in which German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offer viewers “exclusive offers.”
In some videos, the politicians urge people to invest in “state investment platforms” with guaranteed returns of 300%. In other, more aggressive videos, the “leaders” generated by the neural network allegedly confess to corruption schemes, urging citizens to click on links to “discover the truth and receive compensation.”
The voices, facial expressions, and even the characteristic gestures of politicians are so accurately reproduced that ordinary users are falling for it. According to preliminary data, the scale of fraud has already affected hundreds of thousands of citizens across the European Union.
The European Commission has been forced into crisis management mode. Officials in Brussels are already preparing an emergency plan to combat digital fraud, which is expected to be presented before the summer.
“We are dealing not simply with theft of money, but with a direct attack on trust in public institutions,” the EU committee stated.
The main points of the plan being developed are:
Obligating platforms (Meta, X, TikTok) to implement algorithms for automatic, real-time AI content recognition.
Sharply increasing fines for social media platforms for the slow removal of verified deepfakes.
Creating a pan-European hotline for victims of neural network fraud.