On Wednesday morning, the X account of Tanzanian billionaire Mohammed Dewji posted a 10-second video of the bearded tycoon sitting in his home office with a piece of paper on which he had scribbled one word: $Tanzania. Dewji, who is CEO of the conglomerate METL Group and owner of a professional football team in Dar es Salaam, is a popular figure in Tanzania, with over 2.2 million followers on X (known previously as Twitter). His account posted several times on Wednesday morning promoting the token, including instructions on how to buy it.
But Dewji says he had no involvement in the project and that his X account has been hacked. The video purporting to be from Dewji is actually a deepfake: a video in which a person’s voice and body have been modified by AI to construct a false reality, typically for purposes of misinformation.
“my account has been hacked 😢,” Dewji wrote to Forbes in a WhatsApp message on Wednesday afternoon at 1:18pm eastern time. Dewji adds that his team previously reported the hack to X and that he remains locked out of his account.
Even after several of his posts hawking $Tanzania were taken down, Dewji’s account continued to promote the scam. At 2:56pm eastern time, a post promoting the cryptocurrency’s launch was shared. Then two minutes later, a second apparent deepfake posted by Dewji’s account showed the tycoon in a new room, insisting that he hasn’t been hacked and holding up the same sheet of paper. “My name is Mohammed Dewji and I’m trying to verify myself. This is what you told me to write: Tanzania with the dollar sign,” the fake Dewji says. The post’s caption reads: “im not hacked i hope i can verify myself that way $tanzania will be out in 2H.” That video has received over 30,000 views as of 10:09pm eastern time Wednesday. Two additional deepfakes of Dewji promoting the token were posted at 4:26pm and 4:40pm eastern. All of these videos were still active as of 10:09pm eastern time Wednesday. The hackers also modified Dewji’s account settings so that other users could not respond to his posts.
People with knowledge of AI scams would have been suspicious of the Dewji videos, in which the tycoon appears stilted and robotic. (In the first video, Dewji bizarrely insisted, “I am real”). But deepfake technology has advanced so quickly that less tech savvy consumers may be easily fooled. Deepfake content led to fraud losses of over $12 billion in 2023, according to Deloitte.
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The Dewji case appears to have been no exception. Over just a few hours, investors put $1.48 million into the $Tanzania token, which was listed on the Solana blockchain, according to Lookonchain, a blockchain analytics account, earlier today. The scammers appear to be the same people who hacked the X account of former Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro two weeks ago and made off with $1.3 million, according to ZachXBT, a scam victim now tracks crypto fraud.
X has become fertile ground for crypto scammers since Elon Musk took over the social media platform in 2022 and slashed content moderation efforts. Many successful deepfakes even show a fake Elon Musk promoting cryptocurrencies. The backers of a fake ‘X Token’ also have used Musk’s image and name in effort to swindle unsuspecting X users.
“I guess i need to invest more on cybersecurity,” Dewji wrote to Forbes when asked if had any further comment.
X has not responded to a request for comment.
Story updated at 10:14pm on Wednesday to reflect additional deepfakes posted to Dewji’s X account.
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