Deepfake Videos of Singapore's Leaders Push Crypto Scams
In December 2023 then-PM Lee Hsien Loong warned that scammers were using AI deepfake videos of him and DPM Lawrence Wong to promote fake crypto investments.
Topics: science and technology, society and culture
Example
What happened: On 29 December 2023, then-Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong posted on Facebook a deepfake video in which he appeared to promote a cryptocurrency scheme in an interview with the Chinese broadcaster CGTN. He said scammers used AI to mimic his voice and image from real footage of official events, that Deputy PM Lawrence Wong had been targeted too, and urged people not to respond and to report such videos through ScamShield.
Use it for: generative AI makes it cheap to fake the face and voice of trusted public figures, so seeing and hearing someone is no longer proof that they said something.
Why it matters: scams have always borrowed trust; a convincing video of a national leader borrows the strongest trust there is, and AI now lets scammers produce such videos from ordinary public footage.
Limit: The record shows the videos existed and the warning was given; it does not show how many people were fooled or how much money was lost to these particular videos.
Key facts
- On 29 December 2023 PM Lee Hsien Loong shared a deepfake video in which he appeared to promote a cryptocurrency scheme in an interview with CGTN.
- He said scammers used AI to mimic their voices and images, turning real footage from official events into convincing but bogus videos, and that DPM Lawrence Wong had also been targeted.
- He urged people not to respond to videos promising guaranteed returns and to report them through the ScamShield Bot.
How to use this example in a GP essay
Is seeing still believing in the age of artificial intelligence?
Claim
generative AI makes it cheap to fake the face and voice of trusted public figures, so seeing and hearing someone is no longer proof that they said something
How the evidence supports it
scams have always borrowed trust; a convincing video of a national leader borrows the strongest trust there is, and AI now lets scammers produce such videos from ordinary public footage
Limitation
The record shows the videos existed and the warning was given; it does not show how many people were fooled or how much money was lost to these particular videos.
Relevance
A local, dated deepfake case that students can use in place of overseas celebrity examples, linked to Singapore's wider scam problem.
Limitations
- The record shows the videos existed and the warning was given; it does not show how many people were fooled or how much money was lost to these particular videos.
Evaluations
science and technology evaluation
Support
The fakes were built from real footage of official events, which shows that anyone who appears in public video can now be made to say anything.
Counterargument
The same AI field also produces detection tools, and platforms can label or remove such videos, so the technology is not only on the scammers' side.
Rebuttal
Detection tends to lag behind generation, and a scam needs only a few minutes of belief to succeed, so warnings like Lee's remain necessary alongside technical fixes.
Additional support
Lee said the videos were made by transforming real footage of the two leaders, which means the raw material for a deepfake is any public speech or interview.
society and culture evaluation
Support
Scammers chose national leaders because Singaporeans trust them, which shows that high public trust can itself become something criminals exploit.
Counterargument
A promise of guaranteed crypto returns is a classic scam sign, so a sceptical viewer could spot the fraud without judging whether the video was real.
Rebuttal
That is the point of media literacy: teaching people to judge the claim, not just the image, is more durable than teaching them to spot fakes that keep improving.
Additional support
In 2026 Singapore added AI and deepfake literacy to school learning, which shows the education system responding to this kind of threat.
Sources
- Malay Mail (2023-12-29): Singapore PM Lee urges public not to respond to deepfake AI videos featuring him or Lawrence Wong promoting crypto