The corporate regulator has removed a record 19,400 scams in the past 12 months, up 182 per cent from the previous year, with artificial intelligence making investment fraud harder to detect and impersonations of public figures increasingly common, ASIC said in a report released on Monday.

Scammers are using deepfake videos of politicians, celebrities and trusted figures — including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, ABC finance journalist Alan Kohler and RBA Governor Michele Bullock — to promote fake investment schemes on social media, typically funnelling victims to bogus websites that pose as news articles before taking them to sham platforms.

ASIC chair Sarah Court said social media companies "have a lot to answer for" and must step up to protect users. Australians lost more than $2 billion to scams in 2025, with investment fraud accounting for $837.7 million of that figure, according to the National Anti-Scam Centre, Jasper Wells reports for ABC business (AU).