Deepfake Ads Funnel Investors Into WhatsApp Groups Controlled by Fake Financial Analysts

The report describes a surge in deepfake-driven investment scams (notably operations named GoldBull and CoinLure) that use short-lived social-media ads, geo-targeted redirects into WhatsApp groups, impersonated analysts and legitimate brokerages to coordinate pump-and-dump stock trades and operate fake trading platforms; campaigns have caused large aggregate losses (e.g., US $7.9B in 2025) and rely on repeatable infrastructure (shared domains, templates, wallets, contact patterns) that defenders can map and disrupt via cross-institution intelligence sharing and automated disruption.