The apparent moderation gaps are providing fraudsters with a powerful channel to reach potential victims and lend credibility to their fraudulent schemes through sponsored placement.
When Mohammed Yusuf resigned from his “poorly paid” teaching job in Ilorin, Kwara State, in October 2025, he hoped a new source of income would help him survive Nigeria’s economic hardship. After weeks of unsuccessful job searches, he invested borrowed money to begin a Point-of-Sale (PoS) business that he hoped would keep him afloat.
Trusting the offer, Mr Yusuf clicked the link to apply and submitted his phone number and OPay account details, unknown to him that the ads are fake AI-generated targeting to lure unsuspecting Nigerian users into scam. Hours later, a man claiming to be an OPay representative called him, discussed where the PoS machine would be delivered and requested a one-time password (OTP) supposedly needed to confirm his eligibility for the grant.
“It was a video of one of their staff members I saw on TikTok that they wanted to give money and PoS to us. Everything looked real and even was promoted as a sponsored ad, so I never suspected it was a scam,” Mr Yusuf recalled.
The reality emerged a few hours later when he returned to his PoS stand and discovered that about N150,000 ($108.86), nearly all the capital sustaining his business, had disappeared from his account through betting voucher transactions.
“I was sweating and crying that day,” he said. “I had borrowed money to start the business. Losing that amount almost broke me. What made me cry was when I kept calling the number back and he picked up only to say, ‘I have scammed you,’” Mr Yusuf said.
His complaint to Opay received no solution beyond being informed that the funds had been withdrawn in multiple transactions through SportyBet, a betting platform. “Opay said they can not track the money or recover it from the platform,” he said.
“Do you know that today is your very last chance to receive the grant that Opay has prepared for you? If you have the app, click the link in this video, it will let you enter your phone number and check if you have an account to send you a N70,000 ($50.80) grant. Click now before the opportunity passes you by.” A similar AI-generated video ad by Shahzad Ali (@grantoffers) that impersonated Opay on TikTok read.
Mr Yusuf’s experience is one of the cases documented during this investigation, which found that deceptive AI-generated adverts impersonating trusted companies and public figures with deepfake videos and cloned voices are increasingly appearing as promotional content on TikTok, exposing its ad reach of over 37 million Nigerian users to financial fraud and data theft.
Some of the deceptive videos, posted by Abdul-Hamid (@jrbabz1), @nolimitations26) and GreatNews (@greatnews805), repurposed publicly available videos and images of the Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi, billionaire Aliko Dangote, and UBA Chairman Tony Elumelu from public events, using AI to falsely portray them as endorsing fraudulent schemes.
While TikTok’s policies prohibit scams, impersonation and deceptive content, this investigation found scam ads are still able to run as paid promotions on the platform. The apparent moderation gaps are providing fraudsters with a powerful channel to reach potential victims and lend credibility to their fraudulent schemes through sponsored placement. This reporter found more victims scammed through fake adverts on TikTok than on other platforms reviewed.
Over the past five years, Chinese-owned TikTok has rapidly continued to grow its advertising business to become one of the biggest revenue drivers for its parent company, ByteDance, generating N127.29 trillion ($92.38 billion) in advertising revenue between 2020 and 2025. The platform’s success depends on helping brands, businesses and creators reach users through targeted advertising.
However, the same advertising infrastructure that allows legitimate businesses to reach audiences is also being exploited by scammers with AI. Experts said advances in AI have made digital fraud easier, including through real-looking fake videos that mimic trusted brands and individuals.
While this investigation focused on TikTok, similar AI-generated scam advertisements were also found on other social media platforms, including Facebook, revealing that fraudsters are exploiting multiple platforms to distribute deceptive investment schemes, fake giveaways and other financial scams using deepfake videos of trusted public figures and brands.
According to the Global State of Scams Report, consumers globally lose over $1 trillion annually to scams. In Nigeria, people lose over $500 million yearly to reported scams, a figure that includes social media-related fraud through deceptive and phishing ads and messages, and fake websites, according to Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
While authorities have repeatedly warned about the growing use of social media platforms to distribute phishing links, and promote investment and fraudulent schemes, there has been little scrutiny focused on how AI-generated scam adverts are entering the online advertising ecosystem and reaching users through paid promotion.
For Ahmad Wura, another TikTok user, the deception came wrapped in a different promise. He had spent months trading cryptocurrency in small amounts; buying Bitcoin and Solana during market dips and selling when prices increased. By September 2025, he had grown an initial investment of about N206,000 ($149.50) into cryptocurrency holdings worth about N1 million ($725.73). The funds, he said, would help him start life after completing his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
But that changed one night in January 2026. While scrolling through his TikTok before going to sleep, he encountered a video ad promoting a crypto mentorship that promised users could multiply their investments.
Just like Mr Yusuf, Mr Wura submitted his email and phone number to the link, expecting additional details to arrive in his inbox. Instead, he woke up the next morning to discover that the attackers had gained access to his email and subsequently took control of his cryptocurrency Bybit wallet. By the time he recovered access through customer support days later with new email, his digital assets had all disappeared.
“I was distressed,” he said. “The email was gone. The Google Authenticator I use to authorise login access and every transaction was also hacked.” Mr Wura later learnt that unauthorised access activities were made on his Bybit account almost around the time he submitted his email in the redirected link from the TikTok’s ad.
To understand how these fraudulent adverts operate on TikTok, for five weeks between 21 April and 28 May, this reporter monitored and archived 130 ads involved in the fraudulent scheme. The adverts used AI-generated synthetic media like voices and cloned identities to create the appearance of legitimacy while redirecting users to external websites to surrender their personal information and financial credentials.
Analysis of the documented ads found that OPay is the most frequently impersonated brand, appearing in 28 of the ads. Among other top entities impersonated included United Bank for Africa (UBA), MTN, Airtel, state governors such as Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde and Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke, and Nigerian celebrities. The adverts promised cash giveaways, grants, investment opportunities, free devices and business support packages.
These deceptive adverts were produced in English, Pidgin, Yoruba and Hausa, allowing them to target diverse audiences across Nigeria. None of the adverts reviewed by this reporter carried labels to identify them as AI-generated content as mandated by TikTok, despite featuring synthetic voices, manipulated visuals and digitally generated presenters designed to resemble real individuals.
A striking pattern found that scammers frequently exploit fear of missing out, urgency and limited-availability claims to pressure users into making quick decisions. Words like “apply now,” “click the link below to get yours,” “limited slots are available,” are often used.
Cybersecurity experts interviewed for this investigation said such tactics are consistent with modern social engineering operations that rely on trust and urgency rather than technical sophistication.
Further review of the websites linked to the adverts revealed additional warning signs. Their domains had no connection to the companies or public figures they claimed to represent.
Checks conducted on the websites through who.is Lookup, an online platform that helps verify the ownership of specific websites and other details of the domain, found out that some of the websites were registered outside Nigeria, making it difficult for users to know where their personal information was being sent.
While TikTok’s ad transparency system provides users a click button to view advertiser’s identity and registered country, those details were kept in the dark from the scam adverts documented, obscuring the individuals or entities who paid TikTok for their promotions.
The advertiser accounts also raised concerns. Many had few or no following and contained zero posts in their profile. Cybersecurity experts suggested that such accounts are often fake or created to obscure ownership.
The investigation also uncovered patterns suggesting deliberate scammers’ efforts to avoid scrutiny. Nearly all of the documented adverts had their comment sections disabled, preventing users from publicly questioning the authenticity of the claims or warning potential victims. In multiple cases, attempts to share the ads outside TikTok returned error messages such as “This action isn’t available for this post” and “Unavailable.” This revealed that these ads are hyper-personalised, targeting each particular user.
