Between March and May 2024, we identified hundreds of fraudulent ads running on the Meta platform ecosystem for users in Brazil, published by pages of Indian parliamentarians from different parties, on both sides of the political spectrum.
The ads feature manipulated images of TV and music personalities in Brazil who are said to be sharing “bombastic secrets”. When clicking to find out more, consumers encounter malicious websites that promise easy money and try to steal user data.
None of the ads mention the Indian elections, which take place between April 19 and June 1, 2024, nor topics related to politics or India. This is a type of phishing: a scam focused on obtaining personal information from vulnerable users, involving a series of irregularities that we detail.
According to public data in the Meta library, the advertising pages are managed from different countries in Asia and Europe and the ads are paid for in reais, as well as in Chilean and Mexican pesos. The scam websites were registered anonymously in February, and have already had more than 90 thousand hits in Brazil.
This report details the main data and public evidence that indicates the international articulation of fraudulent pages and ads on the Meta Ads network, and the sites involved.