Online fraud is a multi-billion problem in Czechia. According to data from the Czech Banking Association, there were more than 60,000 attacks in the first three quarters of 2025 alone, with total losses reaching CZK 1.49 billion (source). Under the pretext of fake offers, fraudsters seek to obtain personal data from their victims; in other cases, they directly persuade them to invest money in fraudulent investment schemes or illegal gambling.
Advertisements on very large online platforms are often used to promote fraudulent investment offers, counterfeit goods, and dubious services. Fraudsters systematically exploit the relative anonymity of the online environment, as well as the scale, fragmentation, and limited transparency of the online advertising market. They also actively identify and exploit weaknesses in the control mechanisms of very large online platforms.
Personalities and Brands Misused in Fraudulent Ads on Meta Platforms
In 2025, the Online Risk Labs team analysed fraudulent ads running on Meta platforms. In total, the team identified 22,945 ads from more than 550 accounts that systematically ran fraudulent advertising campaigns. These figures likely represent only a fraction of the true scale of the problem. The cumulative reach of these ads — measured as the sum of the reach of each individual campaign, without deduplication — reached up to 1.5 million per day in Czechia alone (for comparison, 6.6 million users in Czechia use Facebook). The number of impressions was at least comparable or higher.
Fraudsters impersonate politicians, successful businesspeople, and celebrities. They misuse well-known brands, create fake media websites, and falsely claim endorsements from banks, public authorities, and other institutions. The timing of these advertising campaigns usually corresponds to business hours — most campaigns run during the business hours, while activity decreases significantly on weekends and public holidays.
Within the dataset of 22,945 ads, the most frequently misused public figures included the current Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš, the recently deceased Cardinal Dominik Duka, and the well-known Czech nuclear safety expert Dana Drábová. The frequent misuse of recently deceased personalities demonstrates fraudsters’ awareness of the Czech political and social context, as well as their ability to respond quickly to new topics discussed in the public sphere.
The highest cumulative reach was recorded for archived fraudulent campaigns featuring politicians from the ANO 2011 party, namely the current Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and Finance Minister Alena Schillerová. The cumulative reach of these ads was 24 million, while the number of impressions was comparable or higher.
Fraudsters also misuse the names of well-known Czech media outlets (e.g. iDNES.cz and the television channel CNN Prima News). Among the most frequently misused brands were Česká spořitelna, ČEZ Group, and Visa Inc.
Thanks to the European Digital Services Act (DSA), Article 39, we have access to transparent advertising libraries which, despite their shortcomings, function sufficiently well to allow at least some fraudulent activity to be detected and analysed.