https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-23/fake-abc-website-scam-facebook-ads/106653690
Scammers are running an industrial-scale operation using pixel-perfect clones of the ABC News website, promoted through Facebook advertising, to convince Australians to pour money into fraudulent investment platforms, with some victims losing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the scheme. The operation, which has been traced to criminal networks spanning Europe and Israel and is estimated to have stolen at least $350 million globally, begins with a Facebook advertisement depicting a dramatic fictional confrontation between well-known Australian public figures, frequently featuring senior ABC journalists and prominent politicians rendered through AI-generated imagery. Clicking the advertisement directs the target to a near-perfect replica of the ABC News website, complete with accurate reproductions of navigational elements including the iview and Listen tabs, where a fabricated news article awaits them written in the punchy, short-sentenced style characteristic of generative AI and laced with genuine biographical details about real public figures to lend it an air of credibility.
The fake articles follow a consistent formula, depicting scenes in which a celebrity or politician is caught revealing or being confronted about a secret investment approach, with AI-generated photographs styled to resemble candid behind-the-scenes television footage. In one variation, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor appears to have his personal banking details exposed by hackers during a live appearance on Insiders, while another portrays him being publicly confronted by Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie. The dramatic narrative exists solely to introduce the actual purpose of the scam, which is the promotion of a fraudulent investment platform such as Hexonix 365, endorsed near the bottom of the article by a fabricated editor’s note claiming the platform has been investigated and verified as legitimate by ABC journalists. Urgency tactics warning that the investment opportunity is time-limited are deployed to encourage impulsive decision-making, and those who click through to the fake investment platform and submit their contact details are subsequently called by scammers who work to extract as much money as possible from their targets.
At least one Australian man told the ABC he lost more than $500,000 to the scheme, describing the experience by saying his world ended as he knew it, while another lost more than $100,000 to an earlier iteration of the same operation in 2024. The ABC, with digital forensics assistance, identified more than 3,000 fake investment brands created by the scammers, with near-identical campaigns targeting victims in Canada, the United Kingdom, and across Europe, confirming the operation’s global reach and sophistication. Researchers found the scam advertisements running consistently across Facebook throughout April, May, and June of 2026, with new advertising accounts rapidly replacing those taken down by the platform, while Meta did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The scale of Meta’s complicity in facilitating the scam has drawn sharp criticism, with a Reuters investigation citing internal documents reportedly showing Meta had projected that ten per cent of its 2024 revenue would derive from advertisements for scams and banned goods, averaging approximately 15 billion scam advertisements per day and generating an estimated $10 billion Australian dollars in annual revenue, meaning the money extracted from victims is being recycled back into reaching further victims with Meta profiting at every step.
The ACCC has called on all digital platforms including Meta to do significantly more to protect their users from the dangers present on their sites, while security experts note that sophisticated cloaking techniques used by scammers to evade platform detection do not absolve platforms of responsibility to act more decisively against the abuse of their advertising infrastructure.