The Central Bank of Sri Lanka has issued a special notice warning that fake videos and advertisements made with artificial intelligence, appearing to show the Governor of the Central Bank, are circulating on social media.
The Central Bank says it has observed the fraudulent advertisements spreading particularly through social networks including Facebook, Hiru News reported at 11.46 a.m. on Friday.
What the Bank is asking
The notice makes three requests of the public:
- Do not be deceived by financial advice, investment opportunities or any other claims presented through these fake videos and advertisements.
- Do not make any financial decision based on them.
- Use only the Central Bank’s official communication channels to verify the accuracy of any financial information — and stop sharing the misleading videos further on social media.
The Bank describes the material as fraudulent advertising rather than parody or commentary, and frames the risk as financial loss to people who act on it.
What the filing does not say
Hiru’s account does not name the Governor, give the content of any individual video, say how long the material has been circulating, or state how many people may have been affected or how much money lost. It does not say whether the Central Bank has complained to the platforms carrying the advertisements, referred the matter to police, or asked for takedowns. No figure for the scale of the fraud is given, and the Bank is not quoted directly beyond the substance of its notice.
This desk is not naming the Governor, because the source filing does not.
The pattern this fits
Impersonation of public figures to sell fake investments is now the dominant form of AI-generated fraud reported in Sri Lanka, and the Central Bank is a late addition to a list that already includes the country’s most senior offices.
The Prime Minister’s Office warned in May that fabricated videos of the Prime Minister were being used in scams. SLCERT followed in June with a warning covering fabricated videos of both the President and the Prime Minister promoting investment schemes. The cricketer Kumar Sangakkara issued his own warning about videos using his likeness. In October a medical student in Galle was defrauded through an AI voice-cloning scam.
What distinguishes this case is the institution. A fabricated video of a central bank governor carries an implied authority that a celebrity endorsement does not: the office it impersonates is the one that regulates the financial products the advertisements claim to offer.
The same day in Colombo
The Central Bank’s notice was the second warning from a Sri Lankan public body about AI-fabricated video on Friday. About an hour earlier, the Mayor of Colombo told a Municipal Council session that legal action would be taken over AI-generated fake footage of flooding in the city.
The two are separate matters — one financial fraud, the other fabricated news footage of a real disaster — and no filing links them. They indicate, between them, that synthetic video has moved from a warned-about possibility to a routine problem for Sri Lankan institutions.
Sourcing
This report rests on a single Sinhala-language filing. Checks of the Daily Mirror breaking rail, the NewsFirst homepage payload and the EconomyNext rail on Friday found no other newsroom carrying the Central Bank’s notice at the time of writing. Readers wanting the primary text should consult the Central Bank’s own website and verified channels, which is also the verification route the Bank itself recommends.
