Facebook scam uses deepfake video of popular Nigerian influencer
- Published on October 23, 2025 at 15:25
- 4 min read
- By Samad UTHMAN, AFP Nigeria
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The proliferation of artificial intelligence has fuelled a surge in scams, with fraudsters increasingly using deepfake videos of celebrities to deceive audiences and promote fraudulent schemes. Among the latest examples, a Facebook video appears to show popular Nigerian social media influencer Martins Vincent Otse – known as VeryDarkMan – promoting a website that claims users can earn up to $1,000 monthly for chatting with lonely people. However, the video is a deepfake: Otse’s words were entirely AI-generated. The original video shows Otse in March 2024 discussing an unrelated matter.
“Alright, so you can now make up to $1,000 every month, chatting lonely people – man or woman, it does not matter,” Otse appears to say in a Facebook post published on September 24, 2025. “Share this video and click apply now. No comments, just apply,” he continues.
Popularly known as VeryDarkMan or VDM, Otse shot into the limelight in 2021 after he called out a skincare brand for its alleged use of unsafe products (archived here).
Known for his outspoken and often confrontational online presence, Otse, who has nearly three million followers on Instagram, has reportedly been arrested multiple times on allegations ranging from cyberbullying to defamation and public disturbance (archived here).
Shared more than 1,700 times, the post was published by an account called “TheRatel” — a name Otse also calls his online fanbase.
According to the account’s page transparency information, it was created on September 21, 2025 — three days before the clip we are verifying was published.
However, the video was doctored using AI.
Deepfake video
Throughout the 10-second-long clip, Otse’s lip movements fail to sync naturally with his speech, while the shape of his teeth shifts unrealistically — clear signs of AI-driven manipulation.
Hiya, an AI detection tool, flagged the audio “as likely AI-generated”.
Using Google Lens reverse image search, AFP Fact Check was able to locate the original video that was manipulated (archived here).
In the original video, published on Instagram on March 7, 2024, Otse refutes social media rumours alleging he had bought luxurious properties in his home state in southern Nigeria.
At no point in the video does he mention job opportunities.
Scams
At the bottom of the Facebook post featuring the deepfake video is a link directing to a page on Linktree — a link aggregation site — with options to chat with either men, women or to “check for other offers”.
The first two options lead to the same article titled “$200,000 + Salary Jobs in the USA With Visa Sponsorship”.
The last option leads to an article on “Germany Visa for Immigrants”.
The articles are all published on the same website, full of clickbait articles about scholarships and job opportunities abroad.
AI-based scams using celebrity likenesses are regularly used by fraudsters deploying deepfake videos to push fraudulent schemes and misinformation.
AFP Fact Check has previously debunked such scams using the likenesses of Elon Musk and Taylor Swift.
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