A Facebook page using photoshopped images of Anthony Albanese in dozens of scam investment ads has been removed by the social media company.
The 51 ads, with between 1,000 and 15,000 views each, had been pushed by a French music page with 14,000 followers since the start of this year, according to Meta’s ad library for Facebook.
The ads, linking to fake news sites that details an “investment opportunity”, feature the poorly photoshopped images of the prime minister either being arrested in a mock-up of an ABC News screengrab or at a press conference. The captions read: “didn’t know the camera was still recording” and “is this the end of his career?”.
The sites the ads link to encourage people to sign up. Similar ads with former Project host Carrie Bickmore have also recently been spruiked on Facebook.
Earlier scam ads featuring Dick Smith, David Koch, Mike Baird and Andrew Forrest have been receiving attention since 2020, but Albanese’s image appears to be the first time the scammers have used a current-serving prime minister in the scam.
A previous Guardian Australia investigation found the sites were registered to addresses in Russia, with others in Ukraine.
Guardian Australia sought comment from Meta and soon after the page promoting the advertisements was taken down.
“We’ve removed the ads for violating our policies,” a Meta spokesperson said. “Scams and scam ads…
