ITV star Martin Lewis left fans chilled after sharing a horror story about scammers who used deepfake AI technology to target him and his wife. The Money Saving Expert shared that a video has been created of a figure who looks like his wife Lara Lewington “being beaten up” by a figure crafted to look like an “immigrant”.

In the statement posted to social media, he wrote: “If I’d thought the f***ing scammers couldn’t sink any lower. Now they’ve done a deep fake AI video supposedly of my wife, Lara Lewington, being beaten up by an ‘immigrant’ as he was refused entry to the [fake] ‘Martin Lewis’ Quantum AI’ investment scheme as it isn’t for ‘outsiders’. We’ve had worried messages from friends.

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“Social media firms have no problem taking money to publish this offensive, fake, organised criminals’ attempts to rip people off!

“If you see them please report them. Yet I have no faith in any firms to clear up this crap. And the implementation of the scam ads rules in the Online Safety Act keeps being delayed and delayed.”

Martin clarified to fans: “Thank you so much for all your concern. Just to be clear Lara thankfully hasn’t been beaten up. There is no AI investment scheme.

“This is all in the criminals’ sick fantasy to attract clicks to get contacts to steal from them.

“We’re fine, thankfully both pretty robust – I’m more angry than Lara to be honest.”

Lara is best known for her work on the BBC, and became the AI agony aunt on ITV’s Lorraine in 2023.