West Aussies have lost $30 million to celebrity | Australian Markets

Imagine your complete superannuation and life financial savings vanishing in at some point — all as a result of of one convincing video from social media.

West Australians are more and more being duped by celebrity and crypto cons, leading to tens of millions of {dollars} being stolen.

New analysis by WA ScamNet revealed that just about 50 WA residents have fallen sufferer to investment scams in 2025, leading to $10.8 million being stolen.

In 2024 alone, 76 WA victims reported handing over almost $19.4 million to scammers and their schemes.

One sufferer was reported to have lost an astonishing $10 million after being lured in by a “deepfake” online celebrity endorsement video.

Deepfakes are lifelike impersonations of actual people, oftentimes celebrities, created by artificial intelligence.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission deputy chair Catriona Lowe stated that the WA sufferer was only one of many Aussies falling for the scams.

“We know of an Australian man who lost $80,000 after seeing a deepfake Elon Musk video interview on social media, clicking the link and registering his details through an online form,” Ms Lowe stated.

Celebrity deepfake scams have exploded globally with the rise of AI, with one extremely notable incident in January leading to a French lady revealing that she had lost $1.3 million to “actor Brad Pitt” — besides it wasn’t him, it was a scammer utilizing deepfake pictures.

Consumer Protection commissioner Trish Blake stated that scammers have been getting higher at utilizing celebrity pictures to dupe weak people.

“The use of celebrity images, increasingly in deepfake videos, to endorse investment schemes is a deliberate tactic by scammers to fabricate legitimacy and entice victims with promises of rapid wealth,” she stated.

“Being told to deposit more money to access your funds, citing taxes or other fees is a major red flag of an investment scam, so too are pressure tactics like being told your account will be frozen if you don’t invest more.”

Another investment rip-off inflicting misery in 2024 and 2025 have been faux cryptocurrency trading, with victims believing they have been investing in “low-risk, high-return” schemes.

WA ScamNet noticed a rise in scammers infiltrating legit platforms to promote fraudulent cryptocurrency cash or “mystery coins” that drain wallets of legit currency.

“Crypto scammers thrive on market complexity, using confusion and fake ‘insider knowledge’ to trick you,” Ms Blake stated.

“They call their victims regularly, offering to set up their trading profiles to gain access to devices, while manipulating them into handing over their superannuation to invest.”

Consumer Protections WA urges Aussies curious about cryptocurrency to conduct thorough analysis, learn web sites critically and be suspicious of guarantees that sound too good to be true.

Ms Blake warned that people who have fallen sufferer to scams beforehand have been at increased risk of scammers returning for a second attempt.

“After falling victim to an investment scam, many are again approached by so-called ‘recovery experts’, claiming they can retrieve lost funds,” she stated.

“These follow-up scams prey on hope and desperation and can lead to even greater losses.”

Further details about scams and the place to report them may be discovered on the WA ScamNet web site.