BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty has spoken out after becoming the victim of a deepfake scam, in which fraudsters superimposed her face onto explicit images to lure people into online schemes.
The 51-year-old told the Times that criminals used the manipulated images as clickbait for paid advertisements on platforms including X and Facebook, designed to drive traffic to fraudulent trading websites.
Munchetty said she was not personally distressed by the images, but was angered by the intent behind them. “My head was put on a naked body and used as clickbait to drag people into a scam site,” she said. “The fact that it was being used to lure people into being scammed made me so mad. I am outraged and furious.”
She first became aware of the images in February last year, describing her initial reaction as a mix of confusion and disbelief. Rather than ignore the issue, she raised it with colleagues at Radio 5 Live, and together they uncovered a coordinated attempt to exploit her identity as part of a wider fraud.
Munchetty noted that she is not the first high-profile figure to be targeted, citing Martin Lewis and Chris Packham as others whose images have been used in similar scams.
