Beware: More Investment Scams Using Fake News Stories About Maltese Personalities Have Appeared

Once you click on the post to read more, you land on a page that looks identical to the news portal being mimicked to add credibility to the whole scam (Malta Today in this case).

On this page there is a long story which is totally fictitious, about how in this case, Michael Bonello is in trouble as he “accidentally revealed an additional source of income” during a filmed interview.

To add more credibility, there is the fake report on an interview with Tim Diacono of Lovin Malta, using photos from a real interview he had conducted with Michael Bonello and Christabelle Camilleri, that was published on Lovin Malta.

The page also includes screenshots taken from the Lovin Malta portal, several testimonials of investors who have made money from this system, and a photo of a Central Bank of Malta bank account showing an example of how much money is being made by investors. CBM does not cater for personal bank accounts and all this is obviously fake, but to distracted viewers it may seem legitimate.

There are also several mentions of this exciting portal that’s making these people lots of money and each and every link on this page leads to the Paragonix Earn (aka Paragonix Edge) platform.

The landing page prominently features a diminishing low number of free spots available to push for urgency and a simple form right at the top where visitors can enter their contact information to get started right away. All other call to action buttons take you back to this form.

The fact that the currency is shown in MTL could be a giveaway, since Malta had used LM before switching to the Euro currency in 2008, but it may go unnoticed.

As you scroll down further, you see fake testimonials from two other prominent personalities and three more a bit further down the page.

How are these stories promoted to reach their targets?

This particular example is being promoted using paid advertising on the Meta platform on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network and can be tracked using Facebook Ad Library.

On the Ad Library, we can see there are three campaigns running right now (these change daily as we continue to report every new campaign), and we can also access who is being targeted (25-65+ year olds women in this case), how many people are being reached, as well as who the beneficiary and payer of the advertising is.

Unfortunately these lead to profiles which are most likely fake, such as these:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61560962494345

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084367524699

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551995614947

How dangerous are these?

Whilst not as dangerous as credit card phishing scams, these fake investment scams require users to believe the fake story to the extent of setting up a profile on the website, entering their own credit card details themselves manually and then depositing money into a fictitious account that is only there to benefit the scammers.

Meanwhile they are damaging the reputation of the targeted personalities and media and negatively effecting the mental health of these people and their families and leading to a lot of wasted time and resources dealing with the fallout.

How can we stop them?

Theoretically we should be able to report these abuses to Meta, who will then look into them and stop the perpetrators from continuing to advertise these fake news traps on their platforms. Even from the information we can see publicly, it is clear that these are fake news traps but there is no support in this regard.

If the advertising is stopped, their reach will be greatly diminished and they will be forced to turn to other methods. Unfortunately, in practice, we have filed several reports with Meta using the Ad Library as well as Facebook pages Help and the results leave much to be desired.

The targeted personality can file a police report and the Police should have higher level access to Meta through the Law Enforcement Online Requests Portal https://www.facebook.com/records/login/, but again, this has not yet completely solved this problem.

Media exposure is another route we can push for. Media exposure can educate more and more people to recognise these dangerous traps that can result in substantial financial losses for them. If people steer clear of interacting with these posts, their campaigns become less effective and they will hopefully be forced to abandon this practice.

Further Reading:

These scammers are so crafty that they also create fake review websites to trick people who turn to Google Search to verify the veracity of the fake news website and investment portal.

Here is a fake review example on Paragonix Earn:

https://www.growkudos.com/publications/10.1510%25252Fmmcts.2021.035/reader

Financial Services & Markets Authority (Brussels): https://www.fsma.be/en/warnings/look-out-traps-beware-these- fraudulent-trading-platforms

Financial Markets Authority (New Zealand): https://www.fma.govt.nz/library/warnings-and-alerts/fake-celebrity- investment-scam/

Scamwatch (Australia): https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/protect-yourself/real-life-stories/scam-victims-tell-us-their- stories/investment-scam-i-lost-50000-in-fake-online-trading

Australian Securities & Investment Commission: https://asic.gov.au/about-asic/news-centre/find-a-media-release/2024- releases/24-180mr-online-investment-trading-scams-top-asic-s-website-takedown-action/

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/its-a-scam-celebrities-are- not-getting-rich-from-online-investment-trading-platforms

Interactive Investor: https://www.ii.co.uk/analysis-commentary/fraudsters-using-fake-celebrity-news-get-rich-quick- investment-scam-ii512787

Swissinfo.ch: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/life-aging/how-scam-networks-use-fake-celebrity-ads-to-lure- investors/82568794

Moneyweek: https://moneyweek.com/personal-finance/celebrity-ad-scams

Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/celebrity-deepfake-scams-lost-money-taylor-swift-oprah-1861255

Malware Tips: https://malwaretips.com/blogs/paragonix-earn-io/

Netcraft: https://www.netcraft.com/blog/inside-a-fake-trading-platform/

Detailed Guide to the Meta Ad library: https://www.jonloomer.com/meta-ad-library/

Pierre Mizzi is an independent marketing consultant specialised in digital media. He supports Alliance Real Estate Group in the role of Chief Marketing Officer and is assisting CEO Michael Bonello in raising awareness of this troubling issue.