Skip to main content
NOPE
Medium reported severity Media Coverage

Argentina: actor Jorge Martínez, 79, loses the savings in his four bank accounts to an investment platform promoted with AI-made fake videos of Lionel Messi and Javier Milei, then loses 1,400 dollars to a separate fake-Temu call

Journalist Nahuel Saa (La Criti) reported in September 2026 that the 79-year-old telenovela actor Jorge Martínez, who was saving a sum in dollars, had fallen for two consecutive online scams. In the first, he became interested in a supposed investment platform that used fake videos of Lionel Messi and Javier Milei created with artificial intelligence, transferred money, and received calls for about two weeks showing growing interest. When the callers asked where to send 19,300 pesos of 'interest', he gave his bank account, and that afternoon his four accounts had been emptied. He noted that the callers' numbers were from Spain and England. Soon after, callers posing as Temu promised him a 500,000-peso loyalty bonus, asked for his account, and took the 1,400 dollars he had deposited; no AI element is reported in that second scam.

AI system
Unidentified video tool
Occurred
Event date unknown
Reported
28 September 2026
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Relation unknown
Reported harm
Financial Loss
Whose AI use
Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Finance · Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account
3 claims: 3 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: AI-generated fake videos of Lionel Messi and Javier Milei used to promote the investment platform (per the relayed account); the tool is not identified

What Happened

La Opinión Austral (28 September 2026) reports, from the account told by journalist Nahuel Saa, that the 79-year-old actor was gathering a large sum in dollars. The first scam began when he became interested in a supposed investment platform that used fake videos of Lionel Messi and Javier Milei created with AI to attract victims; he made a transfer and for about two weeks received calls from people presenting themselves as the platform's representatives, who told him his money was earning interest. It quotes him: when the interest reached 19,300 pesos they asked where to send it, he gave his account, and when he went to the bank that afternoon his four accounts had been left at zero. He identified that the callers' numbers originated in Spain and England and kept details of the bank the scammers used. Soon after, callers posing as Temu representatives said he would receive 500,000 pesos as a good customer, asked for his account details, and took the 1,400 dollars he had deposited. Pronto (28 September 2026) carries the same account and quotes.

Reported harm

An elderly actor lost the savings in his four bank accounts after being recruited by an investment platform promoted with AI-made celebrity videos (his account via La Criti, La Opinión Austral and Pronto).

Outcome

Unknown

The loss was made public by journalist Nahuel Saa (La Criti) and reported by La Opinión Austral and Pronto on 28 September 2026. No police complaint or recovery is reported.

What remains unknown

  • The amount lost in the first scam and when it happened.
  • Whether he filed a police complaint.
  • Which platform and videos were involved.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. Journalist Nahuel Saa (La Criti) posted on X on 28 September 2026 that Martínez was defrauded by a platform 'promocionada con IA' that used a video of Messi and another of Milei to attract people; La Opinión Austral and Pronto rewrite this as fake videos created with AI. Martínez's quoted words do not mention AI or the videos. The videos were not inspected and the AI claim is not independently verified. The AI depicted third parties; no AI relation to the actor himself is established, so the relation is unknown.

3 claims: 3 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported The 79-year-old actor Jorge Martínez was drawn into a supposed investment platform that used AI-generated fake videos of Lionel Messi and Javier Milei, and transferred money to it.

Causal attribution. La Criti's post and both outlets say the platform used AI-made videos of Messi and Milei to attract people; none says whether he saw them or that they drew him in, and his quoted words do not mention the videos or AI.

  • laopinionaustral.com.ar(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    'La primera estafa comenzó cuando Martínez se interesó por una supuesta plataforma de inversión que utilizaba videos falsos de Lionel Messi y Javier Milei, creados con Inteligencia Artificial, como parte de una estrategia para atraer a posibles víctimas.'
  • pronto.com.ar(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    'La primera estafa comenzó en una plataforma digital que usaba videos falsos de Lionel Messi y Javier Milei creados con Inteligencia Artificial para captar víctimas.'
  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    'Fue estafado por una plataforma promocionada con IA en la que utilizaban un video de Messi y otro de Milei para captar gente'
Reported After two weeks of calls showing fictitious interest, the scammers asked for his bank details to pay out the gains, and his four bank accounts were emptied the same day.

Causal attribution. His account; the amount lost in the first scam is not stated.

  • laopinionaustral.com.ar(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    '“Cuando llegaron a los $19.300 de intereses me preguntaron a dónde me los mandaban y les dije que a mi cuenta. Les di mi cuenta, como un bol…, y cuando fui al banco a la tarde me habían dejado en cero mis cuatro cuentas”, relató Martínez.'
Reported Soon after, a separate scam by callers posing as Temu took the 1,400 dollars he had deposited; no AI element is reported in that second scam.

Causal attribution. Recorded as context; the second scam is not attributed to AI.

Sources

3 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read live in Spanish on 2026-09-29 (La Opinión Austral, 28 September 2026). Relays the actor's account as told by journalist Nahuel Saa (La Criti). Researcher translation. Applies to s1.

Read live in Spanish on 2026-09-29 (Pronto, 28 September 2026); same account and quotes. Researcher translation. Applies to s2.

Post text read in Spanish on 2026-09-29 via api.fxtwitter.com (bodies/verify-ar-lacriti-x-2104695128891756941.json); the attached 99-second video of Martínez speaking was not transcribed. Researcher translation. Applies to s3.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Argentina. Court countries: Unknown.

Martínez is presented by Argentine outlets as a telenovela actor and the amounts he describes are in pesos (La Opinión Austral; Pronto); no body states his residence. The scammers' phone numbers came from Spain and England per his account; the platform's location is unknown, so no event country is recorded.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as an adverse financial experience (an investment platform promoted with AI-made videos of Messi and Milei, on which he lost the savings in his four bank accounts); the AI system's relation to him is unknown. The account is his, relayed by the journalist La Criti and two Argentine outlets; he is a public figure. The AI element rests on that account.

People described

Jorge Martínez, 79, Argentine telenovela actor (public figure)

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One person, Jorge Martínez (La Opinión Austral; Pronto). Exact 1.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#deepfakes#investment-scam#celebrity-deepfake#messi#milei#elderly#argentina#financial-loss

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Argentina: actor Jorge Martínez, 79, loses the savings in his four bank accounts to an investment platform promoted with AI-made fake videos of Lionel Messi and Javier Milei, then loses 1,400 dollars to a separate fake-Temu call. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-argentina-jorge-martinez-ai-messi-milei-video-investment-scam

BibTeX

@misc{2026_argentina_jorge_martinez_ai_messi_milei_video_investment_scam,
  title = {Argentina: actor Jorge Martínez, 79, loses the savings in his four bank accounts to an investment platform promoted with AI-made fake videos of Lionel Messi and Javier Milei, then loses 1,400 dollars to a separate fake-Temu call},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-argentina-jorge-martinez-ai-messi-milei-video-investment-scam}
}

Related cases

Medium Unidentified video tool

Bengaluru: a security guard says a WhatsApp video call in which an alleged deepfake 'Chief Minister Vijay' offered him financial aid led to fake 'processing' charges and a fake CBI fine, and he lost more than Rs 1.04 lakh; Byappanahalli police register an IT Act case (September 2026)

A security guard in Bengaluru, originally from Odisha, told the Times of India that on 9 September 2026 he answered a WhatsApp video call in which a face and voice presented as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay introduced himself in Hindi, asked his name, work and where he lived and pressed him to accept financial help. A 'manager' then promised Rs 11 lakh, said Rs 5 lakh had been allotted to him and asked for a Rs 5,000 exchange charge, then Rs 18,000 to unlock a supposedly locked PIN; a caller posing as a CBI officer demanded more than Rs 50,000 as a fine. The fraudsters sent a fake allotment letter and a purported CBI officer's identity proof. He paid more than Rs 1.04 lakh through a digital payment app before refusing a further Rs 50,000 demand, called the 1930 cybercrime helpline and went to Byappanahalli police, who registered a case under the Information Technology Act. The Times of India says the fraudster allegedly used a deepfake AI-generated video and calls it the first such case reported in the city. No arrest is reported, and no link to the Tamil Nadu CB-CID deepfake case or its Alwar arrest has been established.

Medium Unidentified video tool

India: AI deepfake videos of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Vijay offering 'financial assistance' were used to defraud people in Madhya Pradesh and other states; a Rajasthan man was arrested

In 2026 AI-generated videos showing a simulated Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay speaking in a fabricated Hindi voice circulated on Facebook and other platforms, urging viewers to contact a WhatsApp number to receive money for education, medical treatment and other needs. The Tamil Nadu Crime Branch-CID detected the videos during routine monitoring, registered a case on 1 September 2026 under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act, and traced the scheme to Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. On 12 September a 28-year-old man from Alwar district was arrested with Rajasthan Police, brought to Tamil Nadu on a transit warrant and remanded in judicial custody; a phone, SIM cards and a CPU were seized. Investigators traced a man in Madhya Pradesh who had lost money, and said people in several states were cheated. The CB-CID is also examining similar videos posted from Facebook accounts suspected to be run from Pakistan.

Medium Unidentified video tool

Kazakhstan: the Prosecutor General's Office reported 119 trading-fraud cases registered in about six weeks, lured by deepfake videos of Elon Musk, Pavel Durov and other public figures and fake 'AI' platforms; a Taldykorgan woman transferred more than 7 million tenge

On 16 September 2026 the Prosecutor General's Office of Kazakhstan warned of an investment-fraud scheme in which criminals advertise non-existent projects on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and other platforms using deepfake videos of well-known people and fake 'AI' investment platforms promising very high passive income: 'Kaspi AI' with Mikhail Lomtadze, 'Quantum AI' with Elon Musk, 'TON' with Pavel Durov, and 'people's investments' in KazMunayGas or Gazprom fronted by news presenters from Khabar 24, KTK and Channel One. The office said 119 such cases had been registered across the country in the previous one and a half months. Its example: in September 2026 a woman from Taldykorgan saw an Instagram advertisement offering high returns from share trading, left her details through the link, was contacted by the fraudsters and, following their instructions, transferred more than 7 million tenge to third-party accounts; the money and supposed dividends appeared in a fake wallet that she could not withdraw from. A pre-trial investigation is under way. The office urged people not to trust guaranteed-return offers or transfer money to strangers.

Medium Unidentified video tool

Bengaluru (Karnataka): a 39-year-old man reports losing Rs 7.66 lakh to a forex 'investment' scheme after deepfake Facebook videos of Narendra Modi, Nirmala Sitharaman, Sudha Murty and Anant Ambani appeared to promote it (July 2026; FIR 19 September 2026)

According to an FIR reported by Deccan Herald, a 39-year-old resident of Mahalakshmi Layout, Bengaluru, saw videos on Facebook on 10 July 2026 that appeared to show Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Sudha Murty and Anant Ambani promoting online investments. Believing them genuine, he clicked a link, paid Rs 22,000, and was then called from UK (+44) numbers by people claiming to represent a company called 'One Two Markets', who opened a forex account in his name. Between 10 and 22 July he transferred about Rs 7.6 lakh in several payments; when he tried to withdraw, the callers demanded more money. He went to the police and an FIR was registered on 19 September; a probe is under way. Deccan Herald calls the videos deepfakes; no technical examination of them is reported.

If you or someone you know is struggling, free and confidential support is available. Find a helpline near you at Signpost.

Back to all incidents