Deepfake case study · Video
John Cairns deepfake (Feb 2025)
John Cairns, grieving the loss of his father, was scammed out of \u00a33,250 through a deepfake video on Facebook that appeared to show Elon Musk endorsing an AI trading platform called Quantum AI. The scammers used…
- Incident date
- Feb 2025
- Target
- John Cairns
Updated May 6, 2026 · 1 min read
John Cairns, grieving the loss of his father, was scammed out of \u00a33,250 through a deepfake video on Facebook that appeared to show Elon Musk endorsing an AI trading platform called Quantum AI. The scammers used MetaTrader 5 and AnyDesk to manipulate his investments, initially showing false profits before making it impossible to withdraw funds. Cairns' daughter's suspicion led to the discovery of the scam.