The physician whose face and voice are being utilized by deepfake fraudsters

Dr Vasilije Vujovic is a 35-year-old plastic surgeon with brown eyes, good tooth, muscular arms and a smile that might — because the outdated saying goes — snap knicker elastic at 50 paces.

On Instagram, the place he boasts practically 1 / 4 of one million followers, you possibly can see him at work and play.

Some photographs contain jet-skis, yachts and white water rafts. Others see the physician, who lives within the Serbian capital of Belgrade, posing for brooding selfies at native magnificence spots or chomping cigars at unique nightclubs. ‘Do it massive, do it proper and do it with fashion!’ reads a typical caption.

Dr Vujovic additionally has a caring facet: varied different footage present him stroking puppies, hugging his granny, or wanting dashing in medical scrubs at his office, the Bolnica Adonis, a beauty surgical procedure clinic in an prosperous neighbourhood overlooking the river Danube.

In brief, this good-looking (and single!) influencer seems to be each lady’s dream. Yet therein lies an issue.

For these days, Dr Vasilie Vujovic (whom newspapers as soon as dubbed ‘the world’s HOTTEST physician’) has discovered himself on the epicentre of a horrible web crime wave. ‘Every day, I get calls, emails, letters from individuals who have both misplaced cash or are about to lose cash,’ he tells me.

‘They are girls of a selected age, perhaps 50 or 60. Lots are them are very upset or offended. They suppose they know me and I do know them. But they’re unsuitable.’

The strangers contacting Dr Vujovic have all fallen for a so-called ‘romance fraud’. It’s an more and more widespread rip-off that includes crooks organising a faux social media account within the guise of a pretty man or lady and utilizing it to pursue an internet relationship.

Eventually, they manipulate the sufferer into handing over money.

Crimes of this nature value Britons £31.3 million final 12 months, in response to Action Fraud, with losses growing at a charge of 30 per cent annually. However, the true value might be a lot larger, since many victims are too ashamed to report it.

Numbers carry on rising too, with social media giants seemingly unable — or unwilling — to crack down on the issue.

‘These poor folks have fallen in love with my image,’ says Dr Vujovic. ‘It have to be horrible for them.

‘If they cellphone and I reply, even once I say the particular person they’ve constructed a relationship with is not me, they do not need to consider it. They say, ‘I do know it is you.’ It’s not, however they can not perceive that.’

The scale of the felony enterprise that now surrounds this innocent Serbian surgeon’s on-line persona is actually astonishing.

His title might be discovered this week hooked up to greater than 150 faux accounts on Facebook and the identical once more on Instagram. 

All are run by scammers. TikTookay, a medium he is by no means even used, boasts a number of hundred phoney ‘Dr Vujovic’ accounts.

The hottest has 230,000 followers and has posted 77 video clips, some watched as many as 4.6 millon occasions. Another faux TikTookay account has 100,000 followers and has posted 35 movies, considered one of them seen 1.2 million occasions.

Meanwhile, in a typical week, Dr Vujovic is contacted by between 30 and 50 victims of ‘romance fraud’ linked to his title. Several have shared their experiences through on-line boards.

‘I had my complete life hacked and the scammers took practically $30,000,’ writes a contributor referred to as Tracey from Australia. ‘I assumed I used to be relationship this man on-line for practically two years,’ provides Selena, a divorcee from Montana. 

‘He saved asking for cash so he may fly over to go to, however then stated there have been visa issues that stopped him coming. By the time I realised what was occurring, I’d misplaced $10,000.’

One of the most important victims of the entire enterprise is, after all, Dr Vujovic. For this epidemic of fraud, carried out in his title, has penalties.

Over the previous couple of years, the Adonis clinic has been bombarded with detrimental Google opinions by victims who blame him for his or her ordeal. 

He’s needed to discipline cellphone calls from offended husbands, who’ve found their wives sending intimate messages to a faux Dr Vujovic, and twice been pressured to contact police after receiving dying threats.

One notably traumatic latest incident noticed a married lady arrested for harassing his buddies, relations, colleagues and even his 12-year-old son (the product of a former relationship).

‘Romance fraud is a very merciless crime, as a result of the trauma that it causes is emotional in addition to monetary,’ says Anna Rowe, the co-founder of LoveSaid, a charity that helps victims.

Lately, the rise of Artificial Intelligence has added a sinister twist.

Specifically, fraud gangs have begun utilizing ‘deepfake’ software program to pose as a false persona and have stay video conversations with a sufferer. 

‘With AI cloning, all of the criminals want is a brief video taken from a social media web site,’ provides Rowe. ‘The laptop will then simulate a video name. It turns into all-too plausible.

‘People suppose they’re too savvy to fall for this form of crime however the fact is that expertise means it will probably now occur to anybody.’

Details of this chilling growth had been uncovered by the Mail when a possible sufferer handed us stay recordings of a number of video conversations with scammers posing as Dr Vujovic. 

The lady, a middle-aged mom from South Wales named Clare, was contacted by a copycat account on Instagram and their dialog moved to WhatsApp.

Over the course of a number of weeks, they not solely exchanged tons of of messages, however had a sequence of video conversations wherein the faux Dr Vujovic claimed he was in Libya doing humanitarian work for the United Nations.

In a lot of the video chats, the ‘physician’ was wearing medical scrubs and standing in an working theatre. Sometimes he wore a surgical masks, however on a number of events eliminated it, at her request.

In one of many calls, a bunch of colleagues, who had been additionally within the facility, smiled, waved and stated hiya. His voice was equivalent to the ‘actual’ physician’s.

Eventually, the faux Dr Vujovic knowledgeable Clare that he had fallen in love and wished to come back to the UK to fulfill up. But there was an issue. To safe go away from the UN, he wanted to pay them again a portion of his wages.

And since he was in Libya, he wasn’t capable of entry on-line banking. Could she pay the organisation on his behalf?

Over the following days, Clare was emailed a sequence of official-looking kinds and invoices that appeared to come back from the United Nations, together with particulars of varied banks ready to obtain her £7,900 cost. 

She was additionally bombarded with messages and video calls from the faux physician, a number of of which she recorded and handed to the Mail. When I confirmed them to the true Dr Vujovic this week, he was gobsmacked. 

‘This is me,’ he stated. ‘The garments I’m carrying are mine. The face is mine. I can’t consider they will do that.’

Dr Elisabeth Carter, a criminologist at Kingston University, says Clare’s case illustrates the chilling risk posed by the rise of AI.

‘The expertise is changing into so convincing that victims usually haven’t any manner of telling the particular person they’re speaking to is faux. It additionally feeds into affirmation bias, a psychological phenomenon the place we naturally search for affirmation of our already held beliefs, making the story extra plausible.’

The complete factor marks the newest unusual flip in a narrative that, for Dr Vuvovic, started in 2013. Then, he was at medical college in Belgrade and, in his free time, was on the Serbian nationwide soccer squad’s medical workforce.

Dr Vujovic’s function there was the topic of a Serbian newspaper article, illustrated by a set of photographs. It swiftly went viral, because of on-line commentators impressed by his look.

That sparked a spherical of follow-up articles which drew massive numbers of followers to his Instagram feed, together with the pop star Ricky Martin, who (accurately) remarked on the similarities of their look.

Initially, he loved the eye. But inside a couple of weeks, he grew to become conscious that web fame had a darkish facet.

‘A lady from Belgrade had matched on a relationship app with a man who used my image,’ he says. ‘They talked for some time, then she organized to fulfill.

‘Obviously, she instantly realised he was a fraud and advised him she was leaving. But that despatched him mad and he slapped her face.’

The lady ended up being significantly assaulted. ‘Afterwards, she discovered my quantity and referred to as me about it. Of course I stated, ‘I’m sorry, nevertheless it’s not my fault.’

Dr Vujovic deleted his Instagram account. But in 2018, when he started working as a plastic surgeon, he determined to re-open it to advertise his profession. Just a few weeks later, his cellphone on the Adonis clinic rang. A person was on the road. ‘I’m going to come back and discover you and beat you,’ he stated.

‘I requested, ‘Why are you saying this?’ and he advised me: ‘My spouse and you might be having an affair. You have been sending her photographs of your six-pack.’ I advised him it wasn’t true, however he put the cellphone down.’

Just a few days later, the identical man referred to as once more. ‘This time, the tone was completely different. He realised what had occurred. His spouse had fallen in love with a fraudster who was utilizing my image. She’d been scammed. He was crying, as a result of they had been now getting a divorce.’

It was the primary in an everyday sequence of awkward and typically terrifying encounters that proceed to this present day, typically affecting not simply Dr Vujovic but additionally his workmates. ‘I as soon as had a girl from Germany who saved on emailing me copies of the intimate messages fraudsters had despatched her.

‘When I advised her it wasn’t me, she would not consider it, so I finally needed to block her. But she then began hassling my colleagues. She had fallen loopy in love with an imaginary man and would not settle for that it wasn’t me.’

Eventually, the girl left a one-star Google score for the clinic, calling Dr Vujovic ‘a poseur and a bluffer’. It stays on-line, inflicting injury to his skilled popularity to this present day.

Things took a nonetheless darker flip final 12 months, when a feminine good friend used Instagram to publish photographs of her socialising with Dr Vujovic. Soon afterwards, she started to obtain threatening messages from a Serbian lady.

‘She was saying issues like: ‘I’m going to come back to you and kill you. I do know the place you’re employed. I’ll kidnap you,’ he remembers. ‘At the beginning we ignored them, however then she tracked down my good friend’s mother and father and commenced to abuse them as effectively.’

When the girl additionally began directing focused threats at Dr Vujovic’s son, the police determined to analyze.

Not lengthy afterwards the girl’s home was raided. Inside, officers discovered a room wherein footage of Dr Vujovic lined the partitions. Documents containing his private knowledge had been on her laptop computer. The lady has since been imprisoned for issuing dying threats. Perhaps the strangest factor of all is that she was sharing the property together with her then husband.

At this stage, you might be questioning why Dr Vujovic hasn’t merely advised Instagram, Facebook and TikTookay to delete all of the faux accounts. But the unhappy fact is that he has, on a number of events, with no success.

‘I report and report and report faux accounts, however Instagram sends messages again saying, ‘there isn’t any motive to delete this account as a result of it hasn’t damaged our guidelines,’ he says. ‘These are accounts utilizing my title and my photographs. But they refuse to behave.’

His expertise is unfortunately typical, in response to ScamHaters United, a British group that campaigns in opposition to ‘romance fraud.’

Founder Ruth Grover says that social media firms have little incentive to delete faux accounts, since they do not foot the invoice for losses customers endure.

Facebook, the place former Lib Dem chief Nick Clegg is a senior govt, is the worst offender, she says. ‘They simply introduced in a brand new kind of account referred to as a ‘username account’ the place a person’s actual title is not even displayed. It’s like a Christmas current to fraudsters.’

Banks are equally vexed. TSB says 80 per cent of all fraud circumstances in impersonation scams stem from platforms run by Meta, which controls Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and accusing social media corporations of failing to take away rip-off content material and pretend profiles, which results in harmless folks struggling devastating fraud losses every single day.

In different phrases, there’s virtually nothing Dr Vasilije Vujovic — or anybody else — can do to cease organised crime gangs from stealing his id and utilizing it to defraud harmless girls through Instagram, Facebook, TikTookay and WhatsApp.

So on the Adonis clinic in downtown Belgrade, the anguished cellphone calls will carry on coming.

Some victims’ names on this report have been modified.

Have you been focused by a faux Dr Vasilije Vujovic? Contact [email protected] to share your story.