How Teleamazonas Used Revelum's Data to Expose Deepfakes of Petro, Shakira, and Noboa

Teleamazonas, one of Ecuador’s main national television networks, built a segment of its “A la caza de Deep Fakes” investigation directly on detection data supplied by Revelum, walking a national audience through three live scam campaigns impersonating Colombian President Gustavo Petro, the artist Shakira, and Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa. On air, the presenters credited the source by name: “Revelum, the platform that detects deepfakes, has sent us very valuable information about these videos that are circulating everywhere.”

Bringing this to broadcast television matters, because the people most exposed to these scams are often not the ones reading fintech investigations. They are the ones scrolling past a video of a familiar, trusted face and believing what it says. Here is what the segment revealed.

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The Definition That Framed the Segment

One of the on-set experts opened with a definition worth keeping: a deepfake is “the use of technology to substitute a person’s image or voice, making them say or do things they never would have in real life.” Simple, and exactly the point. Every campaign below weaponizes that substitution against a trusted face.

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Case 1: A Fake Government-Backed Scheme Using President Gustavo Petro

The first campaign cloned Colombian President Gustavo Petro to promote what it framed as an official program. In the deepfake, the “president” invites every citizen to “generate real income by investing in the development of our country’s economy,” requiring only a small initial deposit and claiming that “all investments are supervised by the government.”

That government-backed framing is precisely what makes it dangerous: it converts presidential authority into a guarantee of safety. The figures presented on air, from Revelum’s detection data, were stark: 87 fraudulent ads across 20 distinct pages, built from 17 different videos, circulating from January through May 2026. This was not a brief burst. It was a sustained, evolving campaign that ran for nearly half a year, with newer videos replacing older ones as they were taken down.

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Case 2: A Fake “Natural Recipe” Using Shakira

The second campaign shifted from politics to consumer fraud. It cloned the artist Shakira promoting a supposed natural skincare “recipe,” paired with a classic engagement trap: comment on the post and “I’ll personally send you $1,000 as a thank-you for trying it.”

The comment bait is the mechanism. Commenting starts a chain, you hand over your name and details, then receive links and registration prompts, and the fraud unfolds from there. The figures presented on air were 15 fraudulent ads across 10 pages and 9 distinct videos, peaking around the period of her high-profile Copacabana concert, an example of attackers timing campaigns to moments of maximum public attention.

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Case 3: A Fraudulent Platform Using President Daniel Noboa

The third campaign cloned Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa to promote a fraudulent investment platform, wrapped in a fabricated human-interest testimonial about an ordinary citizen who supposedly trusted the platform and prospered. The emotional testimonial is engineered to lower skepticism, pairing the head of state’s authority with a relatable “person like me” who appears to have benefited.

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What These Three Cases Reveal Together

The same cloned face serves two crimes. With heads of state, a deepfake can run a financial scam and shape political sentiment at the same time. As the experts noted, the question to ask of any emotionally charged video is: who benefits from the feeling it provokes? That dual-use risk is what makes deepfakes of political leaders especially serious, and it connects directly to the broader executive and leader impersonation patterns playing out across the region.

The defense is friction. The segment’s practical advice was simple and correct: take a few seconds, even a few minutes, before believing or sharing. Cross-check against trusted news outlets. Once you forward a deepfake “just to ask,” you have already passed it to hundreds more. Knowing how to spot a deepfake is the first line of defense.

Detection is what makes the threat visible. None of these figures, 87 ads here, 15 there, months of sustained activity, would be public without someone systematically counting them. That is the role Revelum’s data played in this broadcast, and it mirrors the Forbes Colombia investigations running in parallel.

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What Revelum Does

Revelum supplied the detection data behind this segment through the same infrastructure it runs every day: continuous monitoring of advertising and social platforms for synthetic media that impersonates executives, public figures, and political leaders, followed by takedown filings tracked until the content is removed.

If you want to understand your exposure, or put a plan in place before a campaign targets you, we’re here.

Contact Revelum

We’ll assess your situation and tell you what we’re seeing, typically within 24 hours.

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Revelum’s data was featured in Teleamazonas’s “A la caza de Deep Fakes” investigation; watch the segment. See also our full media coverage of the Forbes and Teleamazonas investigations.

Revelum is a deepfake detection and removal service operating globally, with a focus on the Americas and Europe. We protect executives, public figures, political leaders, and organizations from AI-generated disinformation and fraud.

Disclaimer: This article is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every situation is different, and we strongly recommend consulting a qualified legal professional for guidance specific to your circumstances. Revelum’s services are operational in nature and do not replace legal counsel.