AI-Generated Disinformation: Zelensky's Bugatti Scandal

AI-Generated Disinformation: Zelensky's Bugatti Scandal

Russian disinformation about Zelensky's wife buying a Bugatti with US aid went viral, fueled by AI, spreading false narratives online.

Jesse Anglen
July 19, 2024

looking for a development partner?

Connect with technology leaders today!

Schedule Free Call

In the space of 24 hours, a piece of Russian disinformation about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife buying a Bugatti car with American aid money traveled at warp speed across the internet. Though it originated from an unknown French website, it quickly became a trending topic on X and the top result on Google. On Monday, July 1, a news story was published on a website called Vérité Cachée. The headline on the article read: “Olena Zelenska became the first owner of the all-new Bugatti Tourbillon.” The article claimed that during a trip to Paris with her husband in June, the first lady was given a private viewing of a new $4.8 million supercar from Bugatti and immediately placed an order. It also included a video of a man that claimed to work at the dealership. But the video, like the website itself, was completely fake.


Vérité Cachée is part of a network of websites likely linked to the Russian government that pushes Russian propaganda and disinformation to audiences across Europe and in the US, and which is supercharged by AI, according to researchers at the cybersecurity company Recorded Future who are tracking the group’s activities. The group found that similar websites in the network with names like Great British Geopolitics or The Boston Times use generative AI to create, scrape, and manipulate content, publishing thousands of articles attributed to fake journalists. At that point, Bugatti had issued a statement debunking the story. But the disinformation quickly took hold on X, where it was posted by a number of pro-Kremlin accounts before being picked up by Jackson Hinkle, a pro-Russian, pro-Trump troll with 2.6 million followers. Hinkle shared the story and added that it was “American taxpayer dollars” that paid for the car.


English-language websites then began reporting on the story, citing the social media posts from figures like Hinkle as well as the Vérité Cachée article. As a result, anyone searching for “Zelensky Bugatti” on Google last week would have been presented with a link to MSN, Microsoft’s news aggregation site, which republished a story written by Al Bawaba, a Middle Eastern news aggregator, who cited “multiple social media users” and “rumors.” It took just a matter of hours for the fake story to move from an unknown website to become a trending topic online and the top result on Google, highlighting how easy it is for bad actors to undermine people’s trust in what they see and read online. Google and Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


“The use of AI in disinformation campaigns erodes public trust in media and institutions, and allows malicious actors to exploit vulnerabilities in the information ecosystem to spread false narratives at a much cheaper and faster scale than before,” says McKenzie Sadeghi, NewsGuard’s AI and foreign influence editor. Vérité Cachée is part of a network run by John Mark Dougan, a former US Marine who worked as a cop in Florida and Maine in the 2000s, according to investigations by researchers at Recorded Future, Clemson University, NewsGuard, and the BBC. Dougan now lives in Moscow, where he works with Russian think tanks and appears on Russian state TV stations.


A network of Russia-based websites masquerading as local American newspapers is pumping out fake stories as part of an AI-powered operation that is increasingly targeting the US election, a BBC investigation can reveal. A former Florida police officer who relocated to Moscow is one of the key figures behind it. The following would have been a bombshell report - if it were true. Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, allegedly bought a rare Bugatti Tourbillon sports car for 4.5m euros ($4.8m; £3.8m) while visiting Paris for D-Day commemorations in June. The source of the funds was supposedly American military aid money.


The story appeared on an obscure French website just days ago - and was swiftly debunked. Experts pointed out strange anomalies on the invoice posted online. A whistleblower cited in the story appeared only in an oddly edited video that may have been artificially created. Bugatti issued a sharp denial, calling it "fake news", and its Paris dealership threatened legal action against the people behind the false story. But before the truth could even get its shoes on, the lie had gone viral. Influencers had already picked up the false story and spread it widely. One X user, the pro-Russia, pro-Donald Trump activist Jackson Hinkle, posted a link seen by more than 6.5m people. Several other accounts spread the story to millions more X users – at least 12m in total, according to the site’s metrics.


It was a fake story, on a fake news website, designed to spread widely online, with its origins in a Russia-based disinformation operation BBC Verify first revealed last year - at which point the operation appeared to be trying to undermine Ukraine’s government. Our latest investigation, carried out over more than six months and involving the examination of hundreds of articles across dozens of websites, found that the operation has a new target - American voters. A deepfake video that wrongly suggested the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky purchased a luxury car during the couple’s visit to Paris last month is likely part of a Russian-linked disinformation network, according to CNN’s analysis and disinformation experts.


The AI-generated video features a non-existent employee of the Bugatti dealership in Paris claiming Olena Zelenska purchased its new model, the Bugatti Tourbillon, for 4.5 million euros (around $4.8 million) on June 7. The clip has several markings of a deep fake, from cuts in the video, to the strange accent and lip-and-mouth movements, according to Clément Briens, a researcher at cybersecurity company Recorded Future. Yet, it gathered some 18 million views in 24 hours on X, where it was reposted by pro-Russian influencers. Bugatti said in a statement on Tuesday that its dealership in Paris, operated by Autofficina Parigi, a Car Lovers Group company, was victim of several criminal offenses and “firmly denounced this disinformation campaign.”


“A supposed salesman claiming to belong to the Car Lovers Group and its sports label Schumacher Group, published a video on social networks in which he indicated that the Bugatti Paris dealership sold a vehicle to the Ukrainian presidential couple,” it said, adding that the group “strongly denies both the existence of the transaction and, consequently, the existence of the invoice.” “The mandatory legal details don’t appear on the invoice, the price of the vehicle is also wrong, the price of the options and their descriptions are inaccurate and inconsistent, the graphics are outdated, and the Car Lovers Group would never have allowed such a document to be issued,” the statement added.


Federal prosecutors ripped down hundreds of artificial intelligence-generated phony social media accounts used by Russian operatives to create a "bot farm" that spread lies and pro-Vladimir Putin disinformation in the United States and abroad, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday. Many of the electronically-created bots, complete with pictures of smiling clean-cut people, purported to be Americans with names such as "Sue Williamson" and "Ricardo Abbott" who were supposedly taking to social media sites such as X, formerly Twitter, to extoll on Putin's generosity and virtues. “Today’s actions represent a first,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Russia intended to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, scaling their work with the assistance of AI to undermine our partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government.”


Russia’s Federal Security Service – the successors of the KGB – orchestrated the operation from 2022 through 2024, U.S. court documents say. They created nearly 1,000 X accounts and two websites, according to federal court filings. U.S. Cyber Command and partners from the Netherlands and Canada joined the FBI in taking down the Russian operation. The Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The FBI, acting on warrants issued by a federal judge, seized the X accounts and the websites after suspicions were raised about international money laundering and conspiracy, according to affidavits filed in the District of Arizona, where the websites were registered. X suspended the 968 accounts for violating terms of service. The company could not be reached for comment. The bots posted everything from misleading information to outright lies. One user, dubbed Sue Williamson, posted videos undermining the Ukrainian military by saying the number of foreign fighters in its ranks was much lower than was estimated, according to court documents. The user also posted videos of Putin justifying the invasion.


READ MORE BLOGS FROM OUR WEBSITE https://www.rapidinnovation.io/blogs


Drive innovation with intelligent AI and secure blockchain technology! Check out how we can help your business grow:


Blockchain App Development


AI Software Development


Discover how our expertise can help your business grow and thrive in today's digital landscape!


Top Trends

Latest News

Get Custom Software Solutions &
Project Estimates with Confidentiality!

Let’s spark the Idea