Grieving son is scammed out of his father’s inheritance in elaborate deep faux plot by AI fraudsters posing as world’s richest man Elon Musk

A grieving son was conned out of thousands of pounds left to him by his late father by deepfake scammers using AI to pose as tech billionaire Elon Musk.

John Cairns, 61, of Huddersfield lost £3,250 after seeing a Facebook video purporting to be Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, advising people to invest in a new AI trading platform.

It comes amid a slew of celebrity deepfake scams conning people out of tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds, with con artists recently having posed as Pierce Brosnan, Brad Pitt and Martin Lewis.

Mr Cairns, a senior contract manager for a cleaning company, spotted the advert in 2023 and decided to invest some of the money he had received from selling his late father’s home.

After handing over his contact details, he spoke on the phone to an ‘account manager’ who told him to download MetaTrader 5, a legitimate trading platform.

He was also aksed to install the AnyDesk app, which gives third parties remote access to your device.

The father of two was then persuaded to transfer money to prove that he could easily withdraw it.

‘This was all new to me, I had the money there so I just went for it and made a payment of £250 into the account. 

‘Making the minimum investment, I thought “what was the harm?” Mr Cairns said.

But looking back, Mr Cairns feels his vulnerable state of mind was used to manipulate him.

‘I was grieving for my dad and they took advantage of that. I wasn’t thinking straight.

‘I was wet behind the ears doing this, and I just wanted to dip my finger in the water with these investments and see how it would go. It ended up being a big dip in the water.’

He told of how the ‘account manager’ initially talked him through some trading transactions and told him he had made a profit of £82.

‘This carried on for a while. I could see the profit I was making on the screen. He said if I wanted to make more I should invest more.

‘So, I transferred a further £1,490 and I could see the profit growing rapidly.’

When he was pushed to make a third investment, Mr Cairns asked to make a withdrawal, just to ensure he could.

‘He had no qualms about it and said I could withdraw at any time. I withdrew £82, which convinced me that the scheme was genuine and so I deposited a further £1,510.’

But when Mr Cairns began to make more money, the supposed account manager became pushier, refusing to let him withdraw profits.

‘When my investments had grown to about $5,000, I had asked if I could withdraw money and carry on by using the profit I had made.

‘He said that would be a slow way to invest. He wanted me to invest in Tesla, Netflix, Starbucks – to increase my investment. 

‘He said that what I wanted to do would take me too long to get where I wanted to be.’

It dawned on Mr Cairns that he may have been duped after meeting his daughter for lunch and telling her of his $10,000 profit made within two months.

‘She was a bit sceptical. She searched the company name and saw reviews complaining about not being paid back.

‘That set off alarm bells for me.’

At that point, Mr Cairns wanted immediately to stop investing, close his account and get his money back.

‘I just got palmed off with answers like ‘you can’t make withdrawals while trading is still active’. I was constantly fobbed off, so in the end I took the hit, I took the loss,’ he said.

He has since urged others to ‘completely ignore’ videos which depict major celebrities promoting investment schemes.

‘I would rather have used the money investing through proper channels and with proper investigation and have something nice to retire with.

‘It’s a shame because there are people that might have a bit of money and want to see if they can do better for themselves. 

‘In these times, there are a lot of families out there who will try anything to try and make a decent life for themselves and their family.

‘They might even use £250 from their benefits, thinking they can make £2,000 over a couple of months, and then get scammed out of it. ‘

The 61-year-old has enlisted the help of National Fraud Helpline solicitors to try to recover his money from banks Santander and Chase.

National Fraud Helpline solicitor Fiona Bresnen said: ‘With the advancement of AI we are sadly seeing more of these types of deepfake scams using well known figures.

‘The Elon Musk video is incredibly convincing and we understand that thousands of people have fallen victim to this particular scam.

‘It is becoming increasingly difficult for anyone to tell which investments are legitimate. 

When it comes to investment opportunities our first piece of advice is always: if something looks too good to be true, it probably is.’

But Mr Cairns is not the first to have been targeted by deepfake scammers hiding behind the faces of popular celebrities.

Most recently, a gallery owner lost her £30,000 Nottingham gallery after being conned by a deepfake of Pierce Brosnan.

Scammers posing as the Hollywood actor-turned-artist convinced Simone Simms that Brosnan would display his paintings and meet fans in her Long Eaton gallery.

And last month, a French woman was duped out of almost £700,000 by scammers pretending to be Hollywood A-lister Brad Pitt.

The victim, Anne, shared with French media this week that she had parted with a fortune to help with what she believed was cancer treatment for the film star.

The 53-year-old divorcee had received a message on social media from someone claiming to be the actor’s mother before hearing from an account she believed to be Brad Pitt himself.

The scammers used fake social media accounts, as well as AI image-creating technology, to send Anne what appeared to be selfies and messages from Pitt, stringing her along until things came to a head last summer.

The victim ultimately realised the mistake when she saw that the actor was not, in fact, in hospital, and had been pictured with a new girlfriend. 

She was later hospitalised with severe depression, but decided to speak out and raise awareness.