A video of German TV doctor Eckart von Hirschhausen spread widely online in June 2024. In it, he appeared to recommend a supplement that could cure diabetes in just 17 hours.
He never said any of this. The video was an AI deepfake, a clip altered using artificial intelligence to make it look and sound real.
Deepfakes copy a person's face, voice, and mannerisms using existing footage. Scammers use small edits, like changing lip movements, to make people appear to say things they never said.
Von Hirschhausen is not an isolated case. Over 2,000 fake videos of him now exist online, according to reporting from Euractiv.
AI expert Henry Ajder, who advises Meta and the European Commission, says trusted public figures are easy targets. He told Euractiv that viewers often feel like they personally know these doctors.
Why Scammers Target Doctors
Doctors with large followings on TV or social media, sometimes called "medfluencers," build strong trust with their audiences. Scammers exploit that trust to sell products.
Fake ads have promoted anti-aging creams, arthritis treatments, and cures for diabetes and high blood pressure. Prices range from around 60 euros to 200 euros per product.
In one case, criminals repackaged real insulin pens with fake labels and sold them as weight-loss injections. Some buyers reportedly stopped taking prescribed medication after watching these videos.
Ajder says the tactic works because it is cheap and easy to scale. He told Euractiv that deepfakes convert directly into profits for scammers.
The European Commission estimates that deepfakes worldwide grew from 500,000 in 2023 to 8 million in 2025. It remains hard to measure how many people were harmed or bought fake products.
Platforms and Legal Response
Deepfakes are not only used to sell products. Some target vaccine information, including videos that made it appear the European Medicines Agency warned against vaccines it had actually approved as safe.
Sports figures, celebrities, and politicians have also been impersonated in AI videos. Ajder says this often serves a political or ideological goal rather than a financial one.
Meta profits from ads linked to these scams. An internal document reviewed by Reuters showed the company expected to earn around 16 billion dollars in 2024 from ads tied to scams and banned goods, about 10 percent of its total revenue.
MEP Alexandra Geese, who works on online disinformation, compared this to a store knowingly selling fraudulent products for a cut of the profit. She said Meta knows who many of these advertisers are.
The EU's AI Act now requires certain AI-generated content to carry labels, with rules taking effect on August 2, 2026. The Digital Services Act also requires platforms to share more information about who is paying for ads.
Von Hirschhausen has spent more than four years trying to get the fake videos removed, including two lawsuits against Meta. A German court ordered Meta to actively search for and delete the clips, but the videos remain online.
