Overview
- This week dozens of AI-generated advert thumbnails on X falsely showed Nigel Farage attacking Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey and linked users to fake BBC-style pages that pushed paid investment schemes.
- The Bank of England reported the adverts to X and urged the public to report the posts so authorities can remove the fraudulent pages and trace the scammers.
- Nigel Farage and Andrew Bailey both denied the footage is real with Farage calling the clips 'bizarre' and Bailey warning the images are part of a tactic to criminally exploit vulnerable people online.
- Cybersecurity firm Bitdefender and fact-checkers identified the campaign as part of a global, coordinated investment-scam ecosystem likely run by Russian-language criminal groups while stressing that definitive state-level attribution remains unproven.
- Politicians and regulators have pressed X and Elon Musk to tighten ad and content checks after recent moderation cuts and fact‑checkers found around 100 posts using playable-video thumbnails and overseas servers to funnel victims to scams.