Deepfake Justin Trudeau endorses Petro-Canada scam

A fake Facebook video ad used clips of a Canadian television anchor and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to lure Canadians to invest in Petro-Canada. 

The video, which was seen over 15,000 times, gave the appearance of Trudeau and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) anchor Aarti Pole explaining that Petro-Canada had launched a new investment platform that was available to all residents of the country. The energy company confirmed it had made no such offer and CBC said Pole had made no such statement.

Per AFP, a reverse-image search of a screenshot from the clip led to a real video of the prime minister discussing the deaths of a family who attempted to cross the Canada-US border. The videos of Trudeau and the news presenter were manipulated to include words neither of them said.

Fact check 🚩

•  (2023). Deepfake video promotes Canadian investment scam