Facebook scammers push fake auctions for Italian villas

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Products: LinkedIn has verified 80 million people and is offering its badges to other platforms. Synthesia rejected almost half a million requests to generate AI videos last year, 30% of which under its deceptive information policy. TikTok launched an Election Center in Romania ahead of the controversial rerun of the country's presidential elections. Real time deepfakes are good enough for romance scams. The Oversight Board struck a skeptical note on Meta's switch to Community Notes. Google's AI Overview loves made-up folksy idioms.

Policy: The Take It Down Act is one Trump signature away from becoming law; smart activists are of two minds about the bill on synthetic nudes (I wrote about it in FU#40). X is suing Minnesota over a law banning deepfakes about elections. The US attorney for D.C. accused Wikipedia of "allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public." Ofcom announced an Online Information Advisory Committee; I'm glad to see former Full Fact CEO Will Moy on it.

People: Pope Francis I was a frequent subject of the disinformation he warned against; his death confirms the trend. X users may be more likely to respond to corrections by people who follow them. Conspiracy theorists who upset Elon Musk got shadowbanned. A Filipino reporter writing about disinformation about Rodrigo Duterte's arrest told RISJ that the Crowdtangle's demise has made her job much harder. Lawyers for MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell used AI to write a brief and got caught. Maldita turned to whiteboards to disseminate their work during the massive blackout in Spain.

This article was updated on May 1 to correct the spelling of Joost Laan's surname. I regret the error.

Facebook scammers push fake auctions for Italian villas

Until recently, the almost 180,000 members of the public Facebook group "Paradise: Places and Faces" were served a heady mix of photos of beautiful locations, young women, and gorgeous Italian villas up for auction.

A friend of a friend came across this page and – because it was an online thing that looked too good to be true – it made its way to me.

To make a long story short: The photos were stolen, the women's identities faked, and the auctions a scam. I shared my findings with Meta and the company took the group down for violating its fraud policies*.

The houses advertised were typically in Tuscany or Umbria, two regions that are particularly popular with foreigners. They had half a dozen bedrooms, lots of land, a pool. Their auction prices were set between €50,000 and €90,000.

They were also not actually up for auction. Take this 350 square-meter farmhouse in Montepulciano, allegedly up for auction at the low-low price of €90,000:

This exquisite abode is actually going for €2,900,000 and is handled by Casa Tuscany. A representative for the property agency told me that "the auction scam is common recently I'm afraid. Quite a few people have checked with us if properties are at auction and they of course never are."

Three other houses advertised by "Paradise" this week are also not for up auction. Instead, they are listed on immobiliare.it and other portals for about ten times the price indicated on the Facebook posts (see 1, 2, 3).

Homes in Tuscany and Umbria can go to auction for under €100,000, but they typically look like this.

Why list fake auctions? To pocket fake deposits, of course.

The Facebook group sent people to the website astadicase[.]casa, where the house listings feature a big countdown timer goading those dreaming of owning their corner of Italy to take part in the auction.

The site is allegedly operated by a Florence-raised auctioneer by the name of Mani Gynmade. "Gynmade's" picture looks like it might be AI-generated, based on irregularities in the images hanging behind him. (The about page also inexplicably includes a photo of a villa for sale in San Clemente, California.)

At the bottom of each listing, a form invites visitors to express their interest. An unexplained alphanumeric reference number provides a flourish of legitimacy.

The website also includes not one but two purported endorsements by the Agenzia delle Entrate, Italy's revenue service. A spokesperson for the agency told me via email that they "do not entertain any form of relationship with private entities."

Aspiring villa owners are invited to submit a registration fee of 300 euros to what looks like a private bank account held in Naples by someone with a Nigerian-sounding name. The recipient's relationship with the bidding service or the alleged auctioneer who runs the website is unstated. Folks who submit this fee do not see their money back.

So much for the auctions. But the deception went one layer further.

The admins for "Paradise: Places and Faces" edited or deleted posts, blocked new comments, and invited users who expressed interest to DM them for more details – all presumably in an effort to avoid being caught.

The group had only recently changed its name from "SYMY IMMIGRATION CONSULTANTS AND RECRUITMENT ♥️🇺🇲🇵🇹🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇩🇪🇨🇵🇦🇺🇨🇦" (this appears to be cribbed from a real company in Canada). The sudden transition from Canadian immigration services to Italian real estate is another red flag.

The ten admins behind the page were also not who they claimed to be.

One, who went by Leyla, reposted content from Leyla Afshonkar, a Dubai-based influencer with 1.8 million Instagram followers. Thanks to Meta's page transparency disclosures, we can tell that the "Leyla" account was previously called "Sarcasm Jr." and changed its name in December of last year. A representative for Afshonkar told me that they didn't know about this particular group, but that "there are a few account[s] impersonating Ms Leyla Afshonkar and our team is doing everything we can to spread awareness about them."

Another admin went by the name Danielle Accardi. She was previously known on Facebook as Danielle MSF Lee, Mark Lazaná and – of course – Mark Bitcoin. Six of the admins managing her page were based in Nigeria.

Other admin accounts were also sock puppets: Fake identities combining a made-up name and images stolen from public Instagram posts of unrelated women.** I reached out to three of the women whose photos were stolen, who all told me they had nothing to do with this operation.

"Paradise" appears to have cost real people real money.

Joost Laan runs a consulting service called Italian Property Auction that advises foreigners looking to acquire distressed assets in partnership with Italian lawyers. He told me that "this scam has been going on for a long time, and I know about several people who fell for it."

He added that after victims pay the initial "deposit fee," scammers typically tell them they have won the bid but have to quickly transfer 5% of the property's value to "finalize the auction." If that payment is made, the operation tries to extract an even larger downpayment from the mark.

Laan says he has received emails from victims who transferred "hundreds and even thousands" of euros to the scammers. He shared one email exchange with me from a victim who had been told he had "won" the auction. That person was now trying to get his bank to revoke the payments.

The victim told Laan that he'd come across the auction "as a result of a posting by Danielle Accardi in a Facebook group called Paradise: Places and Faces."

Well, at least that Facebook page no longer exists.

*This also means that all of the links to the posts are now defunct. I need to get better at saving links on the archive/permalink before reporting them. Here's Meta's statement on the policy decision in full: “We removed the group and pages associated with this scam for violating our policies – and restricted access to the accounts behind them. Fraudsters use every platform available to them and constantly try to evade detection, which is why we invest heavily in this area, continue to improve our enforcement, and work with experts to ensure our tactics reflect best practices.”

**I'm saving their names here for posterity in case there are scam victims who need to recover links to report to Meta: Isabella Sai, Ebru Accardi, Ivy's Mom and Gina UrbanUtopia Estate.