Several YouTube accounts of prominent Filipino musicians have been hacked, and they are now being used to promote an XRP scam involving a deep fake video of Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse.
Ben&Ben, a nine-piece pop band with over three million YouTube followers, started live-streaming a fraudulent XRP advertisement. The scam video falsely predicts that XRP might reach $4, directing viewers to phishing websites to access their funds.
Hackers Compromise YouTube Accounts of Famous Filipino Musicians
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On July 15, several YouTube accounts belonging to famous Filipino musicians were hacked and used to promote an XRP scam. The compromised accounts included those of the local band Ben&Ben, boyband SB19, and musician Rico Blanco.
The compromised accounts all promoted a deep fake video of Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple CEO, predicting XRP might reach $4. The video further directed victims to phishing websites to steal their funds.
Ben&Ben, a nine-piece pop band with over three million YouTube followers, announced on their official Facebook page that their account had been compromised.
The band stated their team was working to recover the page, which was live-streaming the XRP scam during recovery.
A few hours later, the band regained partial control of their account, although some content from the attackers remained visible. As of now, the XRP scam livestream has ceased.
Similarly, the YouTube account of Filipino boyband SB19, which has 3.6 million followers, also announced the hacking. Their management swiftly recovered the account and reported the incident to the relevant authorities.
Also, musician Rico Blanco, with over 700,000 followers, was another victim. Although he has not yet made an official statement, Reddit users flagged his account as compromised. Consequently, his account is currently blocked on YouTube for violating the platform’s guidelines.
Deep Fake Videos of Ripple CEO Used in Persistent XRP Scams
Scammers have been using deep fake videos of Brad Garlinghouse on YouTube for some time.
In December 2023, Reddit users highlighted a fraudulent video in which Garlinghouse purportedly asked XRP holders to send their coins to a specific address with the promise of receiving double the amount in return. These fraudulent advertisements were reported to Google after appearing between November and December 2023.
Fake and scam crypto YouTube channels have been a persistent issue, with Ripple supporters consistently alerting the crypto community about XRP/Ripple-related scams.
In late March 2023, Andy V, co-founder of the crypto podcast SPQR Media, discovered a channel with 276,000 subscribers impersonating Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse to promote an XRP airdrop scam. According to Andy, this scam was even being funded for promotion on YouTube, with the scammer allegedly requesting thousands of dollars in deposits for participation.
In response, Ripple announced a lawsuit against YouTube several months ago, arguing that the platform should be held accountable for allowing such scams.
YouTube replied that it could not be held liable for third-party content. Despite this, the platform has been attempting to improve its efficiency in removing crypto scams, which, unfortunately, has led to the takedown of multiple legitimate cryptocurrency channels.
This caused widespread discontent among popular crypto content creators who rely on their YouTube following for their livelihood.
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