The AI ​​bot promised 100 percent profit. Except it didn’t exist

The latest case of the American regulator looks like a textbook example of what is happening across the market today. Someone takes a classic investment scam, slaps the word “AI” on it, and suddenly an oldie from 2015 sounds like technology from the future. Victims buy this cover because it is difficult for them to check whether there is anything real behind the slogan. He usually doesn’t stand.

A bot that has never traded

On May 28, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the American market regulator, indicted Nathan Fuller from Texas. The allegation: From October 2022 to mid-2024, he raised approximately $12.3 million from roughly 150 people in nine states and two countries. He sold shares in an alleged arbitrage operation, i.e. earning money on price differences of the same digital coin between exchanges, which was supposed to be run by proprietary bots based on artificial intelligence. He promised 40 to 50 percent profit in 30 to 45 days, and in some offers more than 100 percent in three weeks. He also said that the funds were protected by a policy and insured like a bank deposit.

The regulator’s findings show that the bot was neither artificial intelligence nor working software. Only about 3 percent of the money ever made it into the crypto market. $6.2 million went to Fuller’s private expenses, and $5.5 million to payments to previous clients, i.e. a classic pyramid scheme in which new payments masquerade as profits of old investors. When people wanted to withdraw funds, they received falsified statements and references to companies that did not exist. In one case, and this is the punchline, Fuller used artificial intelligence to generate a letter from a fake auditing firm. AI was therefore used not for trade, but for the production of false documents. Importantly, a year earlier, during bankruptcy proceedings, he himself admitted that he was running the company as a pyramid scheme.

Why is everything “AI” now?

This case is not an exception, just the tip of the iceberg. According to Nikkei Asia reports, AI-based crypto scams have increased by approximately 500 percent year over year, and annual losses for Americans have exceeded $11 billion. The FBI recorded over 22,000 reports of fraud involving AI in 2025, totaling $893 million, and Deloitte predicts that in the US alone, losses from fraud powered by generative AI will reach $40 billion by 2027.

The reason is prosaic. Artificial intelligence has drastically reduced the cost of lying. In the past, building a credible facade, i.e. a fake website, media profiles, videos with an “expert”, required people and time. Today, one person generates all this in an afternoon. Chainalysis analysts calculated that an AI-supported scam brings in an average of $3.2 million, which is about four and a half times more profitable than a traditional one. The most dangerous is deepfake, i.e. a prepared recording impersonating a real person. The number of deepfake financial frauds has recently increased by over 340 percent.

What does it look like in Poland?

Here we are not a front row viewer, but a participant. The National Bank of Poland warns that Poles have already paid over PLN 750 million to online fraudsters. Today, deepfak ads dominate, in which the image of the President of the Republic of Poland or the Orlen logo is used to promote “secret” platforms. Recently, a case was described of a 58-year-old man who lost over PLN 800,000 through one application by being duped by an alleged “analyst”. The mechanism is identical to Fuller’s, only the packaging changes.

Six signs that an AI bot is a scam

I’ve collected the most common red flags for you. If you see even one, treat the offer as a scam until you have clear proof otherwise.

• Guaranteed, constant and high profit, for example 40 to 50 percent per month or 100 percent in three weeks. The market doesn’t work that way, and anyone who promises it is lying.
• Ensuring that funds are “insured” or “deposit-guaranteed”. Such insurance does not cover the decline in the value of the investment or losses due to fraud, and the crypto trading bot is not a deposit of any kind, so this protection does not cover it at all.
• A bot or algorithm whose operation cannot be verified. “Secret, proprietary AI technology” is a cover, not an argument.
• The face of a famous person or institution in an advertisement. Today, it is most often a deepfake, not real support.
• The payment is suddenly blocked “for the duration of the audit”, and the account balance increases only on paper.
• Time pressure and a bonus for referring a friend, that is, the fuel of every pyramid scheme.

There is also a very simple test recommended by cybersecurity specialists. Enter the name of the project in the search engine along with the word “scam” or “fraud”. Internet users usually warn faster than any regulator.

What does this mean for you

The conclusion is uncomfortable, but true. Artificial intelligence is not the villain here, it is a tool that fraudsters simply use better and cheaper than a year ago. The same AI that helps you at work can generate a fake auditor for someone else’s scam. The wealthier you are, the more personalized the scam you will get, because a bigger fish is worth sacrificing a better deepfake.

Therefore, the only lasting defense does not depend on technology, but on principle. No honest entity will guarantee you a constant, high profit, and anyone who does this has just exposed himself. Before you pay even a penny, check who is behind the offer, where it is registered and whether it is subject to any supervision. It’s a reminder that in a world where a lie can be produced in a minute, your healthy skepticism is worth more than the best spam filter.