'I was scammed out of £60,000 by a Martin Lewis deepfake advert'

A vulnerable pensioner with early stage dementia lost nearly £60,000 in a cruel cryptocurrency scam that used a deepfake video of Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis.

Adrian Kearney, 71, was saddled with huge debts after falling for the fake advert on Facebook, which promised huge returns for minimal investment. The great-grandfather, from Swansea, was duped into handing control of his mobile phone to the criminals, who took out multiple loans in his name before siphoning the money out of his bank accounts.

Even when he told the fraudster he was suffering from crippling arthritis and a chronic lung condition, they urged him to carry on - praising his “resilience”.

• 'He was my best mate but what he did to me and my family will haunt me forever'
• Brit OnlyFans model jailed after trying to smuggle £200K of drugs to holiday hotspot

After £58,400 was taken from his bank accounts with Barclays and Monzo, the scammer - who claimed to be from a wealth management company - stopped responding to messages.

Adrian said: “I was gutted, I just felt absolutely terrible. I’m not a well person, I’m a bit like death warmed up, and I just wanted to curl up and die. I was a fool, and they say a fool and his money are soon parted. I feel like this is all my fault, because I went along with it thinking I was going to be like Rockefeller.”

Martin Lewis has repeatedly warned people not to be take in by adverts or sites featuring him, saying: “See any advert with me in, I do not talk about crypto. I do not do advertising, I do not do investing.”

But the fraud has left Adrian with monthly loan repayments of more than £1,000 to five different lenders.

Adrian, who worked in forensic medicine, has now enlisted the help of National Fraud Helpline solicitors to try to recover his money from his banks, which have obligations from regulators to help protect their customers from fraud.

Fiona Bresnen, a lawyer at National Fraud Helpline solicitors, said: “This is a particularly sad case of scammers exploiting someone that they knew was vulnerable.

“We’re now seeing AI being used in all sorts of different frauds. Scammers use Martin Lewis’s images as they know consumers respect him and will listen to his advice.

“Being able to animate a video of Martin Lewis through AI makes it all the more convincing.

“Banks have an obligation to protect their customers from fraud, particularly someone like Mr Kearney who is clearly vulnerable.”

Adrian’s ordeal began earlier this year when he was sucked into the scam by promises of a large monthly income for an initial investment of £200.

“I knew about AI, but this video of Martin Lewis looked totally genuine,” he said, hoping to earn some money to go towards a trip to see friends in Thailand with his wife Ruth.

He clicked the link and was contacted by a man claiming to be a financial expert.

Adrian said: “He asked me if I had £10,000, and I said ‘no’, but he said he would get me a bank loan, buy the crypto with that, and then pay the loan back within 30 days.

“I’m a total technophobe and this was all over my head. And because I’ve got this early stage dementia going on, he was really in heaven with the gates shut because he had this right dick on the other end of the phone and he used it to his advantage.”

Adrian was persuaded to download AnyDesk to his phone, which gave him control of his device, and the scammer then took out a succession of loans.

The money was then transferred from his Barclays account to a Revolut account the fraudster encouraged him to open, from where it would disappear - allegedly into crypto investments.

Adrian said: “I was just the puppet and someone else was pulling the strings.”

A final payment, of £9,500 in early May, included most of Adrian’s remaining savings, and he appealed to Berner for help.

“I told him this was nearly all the money in my account, and I’ve got direct debits to pay,” he said. “He transferred £800 into my Barclays account, which made me think it was all above board.”

At one point Adrian was told he had £70,000 in crypto - but things came to a crashing halt when the fraudster suddenly stopped responding to messages.

Now Adrian is burdened with debt, and is desperate to get his money back.

He said: “I worry that if I get hit by a bus in the morning, who's going to pay off the loans? I want to highlight this to stop somebody else from ending up in the same position.”

For more fraud prevention and scam recovery advice visit: www.nationalfraudhelpline.co.uk