Two Canadians lost a combined $2.3 million to sophisticated cryptocurrency scams driven by AI-generated content. Denise, a 51-year-old from Markham, Ontario, lost her life savings of $1.7 million after viewing a deepfake video of Elon Musk on Facebook promising high returns. She even took out a second mortgage to invest.
Similarly, Donald Hanrahan from Charlottetown lost $600,000 after falling for a fake “Dragon’s Den” endorsement. Both victims believed their investments were growing until they attempted to withdraw funds and were blocked. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre warns that AI technology is making scams increasingly difficult to detect, with reported losses exceeding $1.2 billion recently.