Fake "investment group" Facebook ads impersonating Cathie Wood, Joe Kernen and Tom Lee to recruit WhatsApp pump-and-dump victims

Cathie Wood, ARK Invest, Joe Kernen and Tom Lee are impersonated victims, not operators

The named financial figures have no involvement in these groups; ARK Invest's own help centre states that "ARK Invest, Cathie Wood, and members of the ARK Invest team will never solicit funds, including cryptocurrency, via social media, YouTube videos, and/or direct messages" and that "any accounts or websites claiming otherwise are not affiliated with ARK Invest in any way."

Every public figure named in the 2026 alerts is a victim of image theft, not a participant

The 6 April 2026 investor alerts name Cathie Wood, Joe Kernen, Kevin O'Leary, Savita Subramanian, Dave Portnoy and Ramit Sethi as figures whose likenesses were used in fraudulent ads "without their permission," increasingly via AI-generated images and video. None of them, nor ARK Invest, CNBC, Fundstrat, Bank of America or any other firm they are associated with, has any connection to these WhatsApp groups.

A federal indictment describes the same playbook and offshore operators

The AGs' letter cites a Chicago case in which federal prosecutors charged seven men from Malaysia and Taiwan over an alleged pump-and-dump run between November 2024 and February 2025 in which operators allegedly "posed as U.S.-based investment advisors on social media and messaging platforms." Law enforcement seized approximately $214 million and filed a civil complaint to permanently forfeit it, with the stated intent of returning the money to affected investors. The defendants are charged, not convicted, and were not in custody when the case was announced.

Facebook ad funnels straight into an unaffiliated WhatsApp group

The attorneys general wrote that they reviewed Facebook newsfeed advertisements "with images of well-known investors" offering membership into an investment group, and that on clicking, "the user is prompted to download WhatsApp and join a group" — groups that are "not sponsored or affiliated in any way with the investor identified in the advertisement." (Copies of the letter posted by the New York AG are dated 11 June 2025 and by the California AG 5 June 2025; the coalition announced it on 11 June 2025.)

The mechanic is a pump-and-dump, which the AGs call securities fraud outright

Per the letter, impostor investment experts recommend thinly traded penny stocks so the price rises, then "the fraudster can then profit from the price inflation by quickly selling the securities at a high price," and the letter states flatly that "pump and dump schemes are illegal and constitute securities fraud."

Meta's ad review demonstrably fails to stop them

The AGs wrote that "bad actors have been able to defeat these systems by just changing their advertisements" and that New York investigators "continue to receive investment tip scam advertisements months after submitting scam reports to Meta." Reuters reported in November 2025, based on internal documents, that Meta bans an advertiser only when its systems are at least 95% certain of fraud and charges flagged higher-risk advertisers below that threshold premium rates rather than removing them. Meta disputes the reporting: spokesman Andy Stone said the documents "present a selective view that distorts Meta's approach to fraud and scams" and called the related 10%-of-revenue estimate "rough and overly-inclusive."

Meta is acting, but the regulators say it is nowhere near enough

Meta says its program protects the images of more than 500,000 celebrities and public figures and it filed lawsuits on 26 February 2026 against advertisers in Brazil, China and Vietnam running "celeb bait" impersonation ads — yet the 42 attorneys general concluded that if Meta cannot implement a more effective process, "then it should just stop running investment advertisements as a category."

Named, itemised consumer losses in the AGs' letter

The letter documents a Pennsylvania consumer who lost $89,000 after clicking a Cathie Wood advertisement on Facebook, a second Pennsylvanian who lost $40,000, a New York report of an individual losing over $100,000 after joining a WhatsApp group fraudulently linked to a well-known investment management firm, and a 65-year-old woman who lost her 401(k) after clicking a Facebook ad for what appeared to be a reputable investment management company.

Still running ten months later, now with deepfakes

On 6 April 2026 attorneys general including New York's Letitia James and California's Rob Bonta issued fresh investor alerts warning that fraudulent investment schemes continue to proliferate across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp using deepfake technology, with New York citing victim losses ranging from $25,000 to over $1.3 million.