Celebrity investment scams are frequently associated with cryptocurrency, but new evidence suggests crypto may be only part of the story.
According to BrokerListings recent study, investment scams commonly use celebrity endorsement to lure honest people into investing in fake companies. While most of these scams do involve cryptocurrency, there are many examples of fraudsters using hard-to-reverse fiat payments as part of their fraudulent schemes, and thus relying on digital assets for recognition does not tell the full story of what all fraudsters are doing to obtain money from investors.
According to Christian Harris, Broker Analyst at BrokerListings, crypto is often the final stage rather than the starting point of the fraud. “People treat this as a crypto problem, but crypto is usually the exit, not the entry,” Harris explains. “When I trace these fake broker funnels, the money often first leaves as an ordinary bank transfer. The scammer has the victim fund a real exchange, then pushes the coins onto the scam platform where the trail goes cold. It’s really an irreversibility problem.”
This distinction matters because many victims may never realize they are entering a crypto transaction at all. A scam may begin with a seemingly legitimate investment platform, a fake but legit-looking celebrity endorsement, or a convincing financial adviser. Victims are then instructed to transfer money from their bank account to a cryptocurrency exchange before moving funds to a fraudulent trading platform.
The research also highlights a common misconception about AI-enabled investment scams. Many people are concerned with the issue of deepfake videos being produced. It was discovered by analysts investigating the deeper issue of fraud that the typical composition of the scam consists of an elaborate three-stage scheme of trust building through connection rather than a stand-alone piece of manipulated content.
Experts have indicated that although the public would often tend to correctly classify a video or image as a deepfake, many of the inconsistencies found within a video or image may not be so easily detected from a mobile device, where most of the content consumed through counterfeit resellers today is being viewed.
In addition, the research demonstrated that there are no instances in which the fraud scheme was built around a singular fake video. Instead, scammers typically utilize a three-phase approach to increasing a victim’s lack of skepticism. This process begins with a fraudulent advertisement that portrays a celebrity endorsement and typically gives users access to a fraudulent news site that represents the investment opportunity as legitimate.
Later on, but not within long time period, since scammers often rely on the sense of urgency to leave their victims less time to analyze, the scheme leads to a method of investment through a fraudulent investment platform or broker who procures deposit funds and ultimately reaps the funds from the victim. The trick is, many of these payment methods are routine bank transfers rather than “suspicious” crypto.
By the time users reach the final stage, they have often encountered multiple pieces of seemingly independent information that reinforce the illusion of legitimacy, making them more likely to proceed with a payment.
The growing role of instant payment systems, whose market worth was $34 billion in 2025 and is on a trajectory that could see it approach $500 billion by 2034, adds another layer of risk. Unlike card fraud, which has chargeback rights and dispute mechanisms, instantaneous account-to-account transfers can move money in a matter of seconds. There is little opportunity for intervention after the victim realizes they’ve been scammed.
According to Harris, scammers are intentionally directing consumers to use methods of payment which do not permit the reversal of transactions.
“Fraudsters steer people off cards, with their chargebacks and dispute windows, onto rails with no undo button. Right now, that’s mostly instant account-to-account payments.”
Recent figures from UK Finance reinforce that concern. Criminals stole £576.4 million through Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud in 2025, while investment scams generated £221.5 million in losses, making them the most financially damaging APP fraud category. UK Finance also reported that most APP fraud originates online or through telecommunications channels, where victims are persuaded to willingly transfer funds themselves.
The data suggests that the payment method may be a stronger warning sign than the investment product being promoted. Whether scammers promise cryptocurrency returns, forex profits, stock market gains, or exclusive celebrity-backed opportunities, they often share one characteristic: pressure to move money quickly through channels that cannot easily be reversed.
For consumers, the key red flag is behavioral rather than technological.
“Any platform that only accepts irreversible payments and rushes you onto an instant transfer or crypto ATM before you can stop and question it” should trigger immediate caution, Harris warns.
The findings suggest that regulators, financial institutions, and consumers may need to shift attention beyond cryptocurrency itself. While crypto remains a common destination for stolen funds, the broader challenge is the growing use of instant and irreversible payment rails that allow scammers to move money beyond recovery before victims have a chance to react.
The analysis draws on BrokerListings’ investigation of three real-world celebrity investment scam case studies, including campaigns built around fabricated endorsements from high-profile public figures. Researchers examined how victims were guided through each stage of the fraud from the initial advertisement and fake news article to the fraudulent broker platform and eventual payment request, allowing them to identify common tactics and recurring payment patterns.
