Jacinda Ardern as Bait
The fraudulent crypto startup which is trying to attract visitor through a falsified endorsement from the New Zealand Government has been identified through its Facebook ads campaign.
The Facebook campaign includes images of Jacinda Ardern, where she appears to be making gestures that look like she is endorsing something, in this case, the Crypto startup in question.
Once an interested investor clicks on these Facebook ads, they are then redirected to a website that shares similarities with that of the popular news portal CNN. On the front page is a story, depicting that the government has invested about 250 million into the startup project for the benefit of all New Zealanders between the age of 30 to 45.
Words from the Prime minister’s Office
The office of the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern has however removed itself from this shady assumption through a statement released by a spokesperson for the office of the Prime minister.
The statement reads:
“We aren’t able to manually or digitally monitor the increasing volume of fake news that fraudulently uses images of the Prime Minister … When we are advised of or discover examples of fake news that fraudulently use images of the Prime Minister we immediately inform Facebook who are usually pretty good at taking them down.”
The spokespersons further states that
“Unfortunately this seems to be happening more regularly and highlights why social media platforms like Facebook need to remain vigilant about shutting down the fake news that shows up on their sites.”.
This is not the first time a high profiled individual will be dragged into a messy cryptocurrency situation. There has been reporting of celebrities such as Binance CEO, CZ, Vitalik Buterin, Michael Tyson, Elon Musks, getting dragged into a crypto give away scam.