Elon Musk’s deep fake videos used to promote new cryptocurrency scam

Elon Musk used in scams with cryptocurrency: BitVex trading platform scam

Deep fakes with Elon Musk and other people used to promote the BitVex platform online

Cryptocurrency scammers used deep fakes of Elon Musk in videos promoting the scam pages. Other prominent cryptocurrency advocates also used to promote the BitVex trading platform scam that is stealing deposited currency.^[1] The fake trading platform is promoted to be owned by Elon Musk.^[2] The entrepreneur allegedly created the site to allow everyone to earn around 30% returns on their deposits of cryptocurrency.^[3]

These campaigns started this month and have been related to creating and hacking other YouTube accounts. These are used to display deep fake videos with Elon Musk, Brad Garlinghouse, Michael Saylor, Charles Hoskinson, and Cathie Wood. These videos are real interviews modified with these deep fakes^[4] of the known people. The technology also allows using the person's voice in the script provided by the criminals.

These versions of videos surfaced online and in many of them, Elon Musk claims to have been investing up to $50 million into the platform and swears on its accuracy and legitimacy of the platform. However, these deep fakes were not good enough and synchronization glitches indicate the scam and fake factors. Also, the script that is used by threat actors is stupid and funny.

Real interviews with fake promotions

These videos show scripted interviews with a completely new and different message but take video material from interviews and evens like TED talks. It is obvious that interviews are altered to simulate the voice of Elon to promote the BitVex trading platform. There are other clues indicating that the material is fake and manipulated.

Such scam videos are displayed using many YouTube channels that are newly created or hacked. These videos promote the trading site and list all these fake videos. YouTube channels previously showing gaming videos or other content in Arabic suddenly started to display Shorts with promotional material to BitVex.org. Including those faces and names that many people link with cryptocurrency.

Researchers found dozens of those hacked accounts on the platform that are used just to promote this scam online. The visit to the main site shows facts that are even more obvious to indicate the scam nature of the campaign. The site lists Elon as the CEO and other companies as endorsers and investors.

Instead of returns – complete loss of investments

The site claims to have endorsements from Ark Invest's Cathie Wood and Binance CEO Chapeng Zhao, without Elon Musk being listed as the CEO. This platform requires the registration of the account either on .org or .net version of the BitVex page. The investment platform should provide access to the site and fund transfers.

Once the user is created and logged in, the site shows the dashboard where the deposits can be made in various cryptocurrencies. The investment plans are there for the selection, and the dashboard shows the option of a withdrawal. The dashboard looks typical and other cryptocurrency scams also show such recent withdrawals of various cryptocurrencies, so the page looks legitimate and more attractive.

However, these withdrawals expose the fake process because the JavaScript-based process is randomly selecting the cryptocurrency from the possibilities and enters the amount randomly too. This scam is not successful. Only $1700 worth of deposits were made to the address. Those can be rotated, so there is a possibility that scammers might have already stolen more since the beginning. There have been more successful scams involving Elon Musk that have tricked people into transferring funds, so criminals earn hundreds of thousands.^[5]