An Ontario senior is out more than $15,000 in a “deepfake” fraud depicting Premier Doug Ford’s likeness promoting a mutual fund account.

In a news release Tuesday, Guelph police said a man in his 80s lost the funds after clicking on a Facebook advertisement.

Police said the ad featured Ford’s likeness promoting a mutual fund account. The ad brought the man to a chat page, where he was convinced to “invest” more than $15,00 over the next week through e-transfers and credit-card payments, police said.

The man reported the incident to police Monday.

Deepfakes are realistic yet fabricated images, audio and video created by using artificial intelligence. Recent advances in the technology have made them more indistinguishable from human-created content.

In March 2023, Global News came across a deepfake ad on YouTube featuring then-prime minister Justin Trudeau’s likeness endorsing a website and product for “passive income from $10,000 CAD per month.”

It was taken out by “J.U. Lanz” in Switzerland, the YouTube page showed. The ad directed users to a webpage for the product.

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The audio played over visuals of Trudeau, including what appears to be generated video of his face that attempted to physically mimic the audio that was playing.

Google, which owns the online video-sharing and social media platform, would go on to suspend the advertiser’s accounts.

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Business Matters: Artificial intelligence experts urge more deepfake ‘safeguards’

Meta, which owns Facebook, did not return Global News’ request for comment by publication time.

Suzie Dunn, an assistant professor of law and technology at Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law, previously told Global News creating visual deepfakes that don’t look glitchy is challenging, but with audio, the technology is much more convincing.

“A person with no technological skills might struggle to figure it out, but for someone with some basic understanding of programming who has enough real audio recordings of a person, it wouldn’t be a challenge to create,” Dunn said.

It’s not clear what the deepfake advertisement featuring Ford’s likeness looked like.

Guelph police urged anyone who suspects they have been the victim of cybercrime or fraud should report it to their local police and to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC), adding even if no financial loss has been sustained, interactions can still be reported to the CAFC.

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