``I'm disappointed, sad, and honestly angry. Please don't do anything about it,''
Yusaku Maezawa said in an interview.
Fake advertisements impersonating celebrities and calling for investment are seen every day on social media. There is no end to the number of people who have been defrauded of large sums of money due to this.
Is that celebrity you see on your timeline real?
"I don't understand."
This is a fake advertisement appearing on Maezawa's name that was seen on social networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram.
At least 700 items have been displayed since August last year, and dozens continue to be displayed every day.
In response to Maezawa's protest about his name and image being used without permission, the American company Meta, which operates the site, said, ``We are doing our best to use AI and human resources to delete advertisements that appear to be fraudulent. However, I would like you to understand that it is difficult to solve all problems."
Mr. Maezawa
: "No, no, no, please delete everything. Because there are people right in front of me who have lost millions or even tens of millions of yen because my photos have been used. Let's check each advertisement and eradicate fraudulent advertisements! I'm not convinced."
Establish your own response team
Last year, Maezawa set up a specialized team to deal with spoofed ads. When a new reporting center was opened in March, over 180 damage reports were received within 10 days.
The total amount of damage is approximately 2 billion yen. Some people complained of damage exceeding 100 million yen, and they requested that the police take countermeasures and investigate.
Saturday Watch 9 (scheduled to be broadcast on April 6th)
What happens when you click on a fake ad...Click here for the video
*Distributed on NHK Plus until 10pm on Saturday, April 13th
A series of celebrity impersonations
The hotline set up by Maezawa has also received complaints from people who were deceived by advertisements impersonating other celebrities.
Businessman Takafumi Horie, economic analyst Takuro Morinaga, and Yoshiaki Murakami of the former Murakami Fund...
Recently, people who seem to have nothing to do with investing, such as professional tennis player Naomi Osaka and journalist Akira Ikegami, have also appeared.
Celebrities consulted about identity theft (titles omitted)
Takafumi Horie, Yoshiaki Murakami, Takuro Morinaga, Atsuhiko Nakata, Hiroto Kiritani, Hiroshi Mikitani, Naomi Osaka, Akira Ikegami, Hiroyuki Kishi, Hiroyuki Nishimura
The number of ads has increased rapidly since last year, and most of the ads were on Instagram and Facebook.
Maezawa
: ``What Meta is doing is encouraging and supporting fraudulent activity, so it is clearly failing to fulfill its social responsibility.We immediately declared that we would completely eradicate fraudulent advertising, so that advertisers could advertise with peace of mind. We need to make it a platform where people can submit articles.”
SNS advertising is the gateway
What happens if you click on a fake social media ad?
I was able to speak to a man who was actually defrauded out of 8 million yen.
The man is in his 70s and was in charge of marketing at a major manufacturing company before retiring.
It all started when I saw an advertisement on Instagram that said ``Takuro Morinaga, an economic commentator, gives investment advice.'' When he clicked on it, he was prompted to register as a friend on LINE.
On LINE, an account claiming to be Mr. Morinaga tried to get him to believe him by bringing up stories about his family.
Comments that reassure actual LINE men (left) and detailed answers to questions (right)
Furthermore, an account claiming to be Mr. Morinaga said that he was "not good at SNS" and introduced an "assistant". The assistant reportedly sent messages almost every day.
There are also comments that show concern for men.
Male victim
: ``It was like they were providing one-on-one support.At first, I was skeptical, but after three months of continuous communication, I started to think that everything would be okay.''
As we continued to communicate, we received 50 pages of project materials for undisclosed crypto assets.
Materials actually sent
The idea is to invest in the ``NEV (New Energy Vehicle)''
electric vehicle business using crypto assets that apply blockchain technology.
The materials are littered with phrases that seem to suggest such things, such as ``quantum entanglement cryptography'' and ``zero-knowledge proofs.''
They were also encouraged to download a dedicated app to manage their assets. The man reportedly invested 2 million yen and watched his assets steadily increase every day on the app.
App screen Profit was increasing on the screen
Three months after clicking on the ad, the value of the crypto assets has reached the target amount, so when I request to withdraw money...
"Taxes will be charged," "Fees will be charged," "I need to add more because the investment amount is small."
He said he kept asking for more money. Although he thought
he might have been deceived
, he continued to make demands to get back his investment, and in the end, he was robbed of 8 million yen.
Victim
: ``Usually, I'm wary of suspicious things like spoofed e-commerce sites or DMs claiming to have won prizes, so I don't get caught.However, this time, in addition to being a famous person like Mr. Morinaga, the communication was very detailed. It was planned in 2007. It's infuriating to think that they're still committing similar fraud somewhere."
After this exchange, the messages stopped.
SNS-type investment fraud caused damage of 27.8 billion yen
As we researched the methods of these SNS-based investment scams, we found common characteristics.
The advertisements use eye-catching keywords that are in line with trends, such as ``New NISA'' and ``AI Investment Prediction.''
If you click on a social media ad with a celebrity image, you will be directed to register for a LINE group chat.
Directing people to a fake site called LINE claiming to be Hiroyuki Kishi
The group chats on LINE typically have anywhere from a few dozen to 100 people participating, and they frequently exchange opinions about investments.
In addition to sharing images of stock charts and stories of profits, it has become a place for chat members who love investing to gather and easily exchange information, such as food topics.
Exchange of money (left) and conversation about "luxurious sashimi" (right)
The amount of damage is also large.
According to the National Police Agency, the amount of damage caused in the past year was approximately 27.79 billion yen.
There were 2,271 victims, most of whom were men in their 50s to 60s and women in their 40s to 50s.
Additionally, many men were guided by Facebook and women were guided by Instagram.
Induction by posing as an interview article with a celebrity
In addition to SNS advertisements, celebrity impersonations are also increasing in the form of media interviews.
For example, this article pretending to be from the Yomiuri Shimbun.
Although it looks like an interview article with director Hayao Miyazaki, the content is completely fake, with claims such as ``Bank of Japan sues over comments made on live broadcast.''
When analyzed together with the cybersecurity company Macnica, it was found that the interview images appear to have been edited from an interview conducted with a different person.
When the link on this site was opened, it led to a suspicious site that promoted investment in crypto assets. Since it requires registration of a phone number, etc., it is believed that the site is intended to defraud people of money or personal information.
It was also found that most of these sites use advanced technology so that they are only displayed when accessed through a browser via advertisements.
The engineer who conducted the analysis said
, ``This is probably an attempt to evade detection by smartphone security apps, and this is a very bad situation for many smartphone users.''
Similarly, articles with the fake news title ``Bank of Japan sues over comments made on live broadcast'' that appear to be from ``Asahi Shimbun'' or ``TOKYO MX'' have also been confirmed.
There are also fake news articles pretending to be from NHK. An interview article with Itochu Corporation Chairman Okafuji was used to add a fake text that called for investment in crypto assets.
NHK investigated and found that the site's provider was located in France, and requested its deletion.
However, even if they are deleted, these fake articles continue to be replicated one after another, and there is no end in sight.
A platformer that lags behind
In March, a meeting of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications was held to consider countermeasures against misinformation and disinformation on the Internet.
A Meta representative who was called to the meeting was asked about their response to spoofed ads, and explained that they have rules in place to prohibit them, and that they are taking action.
・In our advertising policy, it is prohibited to use images or videos of celebrities without their permission.
・Use photos of celebrities to promote products without permission, engage in fraudulent acts, or otherwise do so. We prohibit all attempts to get people to click on something.
・Accounts that impersonate others are deleted.
In response to NHK's interview, he said, ``We are aware that there are malicious businesses that violate the policy. Various methods have emerged to circumvent the policy, and there is a possibility of violation through the reporting tool from viewers. We detect advertisements and take appropriate measures. We also monitor and investigate the behavior of advertisers, and may restrict accounts that do not comply with regulations and policies. We are pursuing liability and, in some cases, taking legal action, and we will continue to focus even more on delivering meaningful advertising to our users."
However, spoof ads have not disappeared from SNS and continue to appear.
When we looked closely at these ads, we found that most were set to run for a few days. It is also possible that this is done to avoid the monitoring of the management.
Even if the operator finds a suspicious account and deletes it, another one quickly appears, but they are required to stop it before it starts advertising.
The account is suspicious...
When we investigated the accounts of these advertisers, we found many obvious oddities, such as phone numbers that were just a series of numbers and account addresses that were located on roads overseas.
Advertiser Maezawa says fake account phone number is fake
Why are these suspicious accounts able to post advertisements in the first place?
Online advertising on SNS allows even individuals and sole proprietorships to register and post advertisements with a relatively simple screening process, and there are too many of them.
For this reason, there are currently many cases where the review itself is insufficiently published.
Lawyer: “The platform is also responsible”
Lawyer Yoichiro Itakura, who is familiar with Internet and personal information issues, points out the responsibility of the platforms that publish advertisements as follows:
Attorney Itakura:
``False advertising clearly violates various laws, so if it is allowed to go on for too long, it would be considered a civil tort, and if the purpose of false advertising is an act that would be subject to criminal punishment.'' It's not impossible that he could be an accomplice, or even co-principal in some cases."
Can you see through the impersonation?
In this interview, many of the people who were deceived believed that the person they were communicating with was the person they were communicating with, such as a celebrity or a celebrity's assistant.
However, there are some points to keep in mind so you don't get fooled.
One is that if the funds are transferred to an account in an individual's name, there is a high possibility that it is a scam.
Sometimes they will recommend you to make a deposit with plausible claims such as "Overseas crypto asset exchanges require authorization, so we will act on your behalf," but using an account in your own name is a way to avoid being identified. This is a typical scam, and police are warning people to be careful.
Also, please check if the images that appear in the advertisements are real by using Google image search.
For example, in one of the advertisements featuring Maezawa, a search for an image posted on the site the user clicked on matched an image posted on the website of the local government in Kyoto.
Images of the fake site (left) and the real site (right), which appear to have been used without permission.
In many cases, spoofed advertisements use ``similar images'' from the Internet without permission.
The internet is full of fakes, and platforms are lagging behind in countermeasures.
Above all, I want you to take the stance of protecting yourself so that your precious money is not stolen.
Saturday Watch 9 (scheduled to be broadcast on April 6th)
What happens when you click on a fake ad...Click here for the video
NHK Plus Broadcast until 10pm on Saturday, April 13th
(Research team that won't be fooled by digital: Yu Ueda, Chihiro Kinukawa, Hiroki Okaya)
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