What happened

A video circulating across Australia right now shows real footage of Anthony Albanese, laid over fake audio promising that a $4,000 investment will return $40,000 a month. "This is not just another scam product," the fake prime minister says, describing a platform that doesn't exist as an "official platform" with a government guarantee. None of that is real. Albanese never said it.

That clip is one of many. Australia's corporate regulator, Asic, says Albanese is now the most commonly deepfaked public figure in the country's fastest-growing scam category — fake investment ads built on stolen faces and cloned voices. Australians reported losing $7.4m to the ten most-impersonated public figures, via the National Anti-Scam Centre's Scamwatch service. Asic itself handled more than 19,400 scam reports last financial year. That's almost triple the year before.

The scale of the supporting infrastructure is the part that actually surprised me. Asic took down 5,476 phishing hyperlinks last financial year, nearly four times the prior year's count. It pulled 7,051 fake investment platforms, two and a half times higher. Crypto scams were up almost 30%, to 3,106. A single deepfake video isn't the scam. It's the front door to a whole built-out fake economy: fake brands, fake reviews, fake news articles, fake testimonials, all designed to survive the exact "just Google it" check Asic chair Sarah Court is now telling people to skip past.

What's documented vs what's disputed

Documented: the $7.4m figure for the top ten impersonated public figures, sourced to Scamwatch reports. The 19,400+ total scam reports and the nearly-tripled year-over-year rate. The takedown numbers for phishing links, fake platforms, and crypto scams. Direct quotes from Court describing AI as making scams "more convincing and harder to detect." A specific transcript excerpt from one Albanese deepfake, complete with an American accent that somehow made it into a video impersonating an Australian prime minister.

Not fully documented, at least not in what Asic has published so far: how much of the $7.4m traces specifically to Albanese versus the other nine names on the list. How many separate video variants exist, or how they're being distributed at scale, whether via paid ads, organic shares, or both. Whether any of the platforms hosting these ads (the piece doesn't name them) face consequences beyond takedown requests. There's also a separate, related report the same paper ran about a reality TV figure whose hacked account became a vector for prime-ministerial deepfakes reaching her followers — a distribution mechanism worth watching, though I don't have the details to say how common it is.

Timeline

Over the last financial year, Asic's scam caseload roughly tripled while its takedown volume against phishing links and fake platforms multiplied several times over, evidence the problem outpaced the response even as the response scaled up. Scammers, per Asic, adjust their impersonation targets in real time to match the news cycle rather than sticking with one face. Court's public warning, and the underlying data, landed August 16, 2026.

For builders

• Before investing off any video or ad, check the platform's ABN and Australian Financial Services licence on Asic's own register, not on whatever site the ad links to.
• Treat urgency as the tell, not the pitch. "Invest today," "limited spots," "government-backed" are the phrases Asic flags specifically.
• Search for the platform name plus "scam" or "review" on a separate search, not through a link the ad itself provides. Fake review ecosystems are part of the same package.
• If a public figure appears to endorse a financial product outside their known public role (a PM promoting a trading platform, a journalist promising fixed returns), assume fabricated until proven otherwise.
• Report suspected deepfake investment ads to Scamwatch directly rather than just scrolling past. Asic's takedown numbers only grow when reports come in.

Further reading

• The Guardian — Deepfake Anthony Albanese used in celebrity scams duping Australians out of $7.4m, Asic warns