Farage AI deepfakes are actually ads for crypto

If you’ve logged on to Twitter over the past few days, there’s one thing you’ve definitely seen, and that’s an image of Nigel Farage beating the governor of the Bank of England:

As it turns out, these deepfakes are being used to lure Farage fans into some sort of crypto scam. And the reason these scammers are using Farage as a lure is no doubt because the Reform leader has promoted crypto himself.

And this guy says he’s looking out for his supporters!

Farage de-bankered

If you’ve seen one image of Farage beating the Bank of England’s Andrew Bailey, you’ve seen several:

pic.twitter.com/b8lN9H4fwm

— MR B.E 🇬🇧 (@British_Enjoyer) June 9, 2026

The above image – in which Farage has a shooter – proclaims that “Britain needs to see this”. This suggests there was a live broadcast of Question Time in which the Reform leader pulled a gun on another guest, and that this somehow slipped under the radar.

In another image, things got so serious that America had to send one of their police officers over:

pic.twitter.com/Mcu3uM5KnP

— MR B.E 🇬🇧 (@British_Enjoyer) June 9, 2026

At this point, it’s almost like collecting Pokémon cards. And while the majority of the Pokémon in question are evolutions of Nigel Farage, there is now some variety:

Relieved to see a bit of variation from the meme accountshttps://t.co/n3Frfbvo2q

— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) June 9, 2026

We personally haven’t seen one of the rare/shiny Ed Milibands, but good luck catching them all.

Some questioned if the Faragalanche is a sign that Elon Musk’s advertising platform is struggling to attract serious clients:

All the ads in my Twitter feed are just AI images of Nigel Farage getting into fights on the set of Question Time.

This platform has to be losing so much money. pic.twitter.com/PhUj5yn3LV

— Tom Nicholas | Watch SLOW NEWS DAY on Nebula! (@Tom_Nicholas) June 9, 2026

Ironically, as the BBC highlighted:

Many of the adverts viewed by the BBC were posted by X user accounts with blue ticks – a symbol indicating a subscription to the platform’s Premium tier.

Platform owner Elon Musk previously touted changes to the verification badge as “the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over” after buying Twitter.

You can laugh at how ridiculous these images are, but the fact that there are so many demonstrates they’re working. People are clicking these. But what are they clicking themselves into?

Age of the Scam

According to the BBC:

By hovering over the links for some of the original posts used in the adverts, the BBC was able to identify that many of them would direct people to sites promoting AI cryptocurrency trading schemes or apps.

Hang on a minute, aren’t AI crypto schemes good? Because we seem to remember Nigel Farage promoting them?

I will be speaking at @TheBitcoinConf from 10pm UK time.

One-in-four 18 to 34 years olds own crypto.

Reform will take them seriously. https://t.co/LgyJdZ6FFe

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) May 29, 2025

“Take them seriously”, he said, as his wealthy backers rubbed their hands together. And lest we forget, Farage took £5m from a foreign-based crypto billionaire, and has been ducking media scrutiny since we learned of this:

Later this week it will have been 50 days since @Nigel_Farage last held a press conference.

Given he's had so long to get his story straight, @annaturley is calling on Farage to answer 50 key questions about his secret £5 million "gift". It's time he finally came clean. pic.twitter.com/G6ol6ZtiL7

— Labour Press (@labourpress) June 7, 2026

Here he is in April promoting the crypto scheme of former Tory chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng – the man who delivered the disastrous mini-budget:

BREAKING: Nigel Farage has purchased £2m of Bitcoin for Stack BTC – becoming the first sitting MP and the first UK political party leader in history to publicly buy Bitcoin.

A landmark moment for Bitcoin in British politics.$STAK @Nigel_Farage @blockchain @kwasi_stackbtc… pic.twitter.com/O614kKe5TN

— Stack BTC (@stackbtc_) April 13, 2026

No, Kwasi: your company gave Farage a sweetheart deal. A bonus he can exercise in just two years. Ordinary shareholders don't have this.

The penny-share nature of your firm means Farage is already ~£200k up (+93%). With crypto, hype creates value. https://t.co/maRks88jMO https://t.co/5v9a9j7m5K

— Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) April 13, 2026

Aren’t Reform supposed to be an antidote to the failed Tories?

People say that cryptocurrencies have no actual use. They say that because they’re too volatile to use as – you know – currency. Saying they’re ‘useless’, however, ignores two clear use cases:

Purchasing contraband outside the ordinary financial system.
Scams.

On the latter, Morgan Stanley writes:

Scammers target cryptocurrency because transfers are fast and typically irreversible.
Americans lose billions of dollars to crypto scammers each year, often through “too good to be true” tactics like doubling your investments, fake giveaways or job-fee scams.

While the above relates to Americans, don’t worry; Farage and his ilk are determined to import all of America’s ills. And for a sign of what that will look like should Farage take power, just look at what his buddy Trump has been up to:

The $TRUMP meme coin is one of four crypto projects that have turned into a financial jackpot for the president's family and a very bad bet for buyers. https://t.co/mg2JIJvnem

— HuffPost (@HuffPost) June 9, 2026

The Official Trump Meme Coin has now lost 98% of its value.
Elected officials should not be issuing, promoting, and profiting from speculative financial assets.
This should be illegal. pic.twitter.com/Bd1JV57SnI

— Peter Mallouk (@PeterMallouk) June 9, 2026

Since taking office last year, the Trump family has amassed a staggering $2.3 billion fortune from crypto deals alone.

Any crypto legislation needs to stop the massive conflict of interests posed by Donald Trump and his family’s crypto ventures. pic.twitter.com/agarS1SuPV

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 9, 2026

Cattle

Here’s what Farage said about the ads, as reported by the BBC:

Speaking to broadcasters during a visit to Grangemouth on Tuesday, [Farage] added that he did not know “whether to laugh or whether to be angry” about the fake ads.

“The trouble is it’s an AI fake but it looks real in every way, and people know that the governor and I have had our disagreements over things over the years,” he said.

You’ll notice he didn’t go into detail about what the ads were pushing. He couldn’t; if he did, he’d be drawing attention to the fact that crypto is the biggest scam since snake oil.

In all likelihood, the people who are falling for these scams are doing so because they’ve bought into Farage’s shtick. This means many of them are the sort of people who deserve to get ripped off. It’s a problem for Farage, anyway, because the thing they’re getting ripped off by is the thing he’s telling them to invest in.

The question is this: is it a problem because they’re getting ripped off? Or is it a problem because they’re getting ripped off without Farage himself profiting?

Featured image via Paul Reid (Getty Images)

Tags: Reform