Warning over TikTok scam using AI-generated videos of Spain’s Princess Leonor

A foundation representing Princess Leonor, the 20-year-old heir to the Spanish throne, has warned that scammers are using AI-generated videos of the princess posted by fake profile pages to cheat social media users out of money.In the posts on TikTok “Leonor” promises users payments running to thousands of dollars in return for an upfront “fee” of a few hundred dollars. Once this “fee” has been paid, the fraudster typically keeps demanding more before disappearing from sight.A screenshot of a fake TikTok video made with AI that purports to show Princess Leonor. Photograph: TikTokAn investigation by the EL PAÍS newspaper in 2024 found that all the telephone numbers used in the scam were from the Dominican Republic. Some of the videos had been viewed over a million times, the paper has reported.In a warning about the fraud, the website of the Princess of Asturias Foundation, which represents Leonor, said: “The foundation does not have any programmes offering financial help, subsidies for projects, lotteries or any other monetary operations for the benefit of individual citizens.“Equally, the Princess of Asturias doesn’t offer financial help via the foundation and any message or profile that suggests the contrary is false.”TikTok’s rules say the platform does “not allow accounts that cheat or try to manipulate our platform, nor an exchange of services that artificially increases interaction … including behaviour such as undercover operations to influence or to supplant identity”.However, EL PAÍS said that whenever it complained to TikTok about the theft of the princess’s identity, which was first detected in December 2024, it received the same reply: “We have determined that the reported content is not in breach of our regulations.”Leonor is the eldest daughter of King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia. After Felipe became king following his father’s abdication in 2014, Leonor assumed the full title of the heir to the throne – Princess of Asturias, Princess of Girona, Princess of Viana, Duchess of Montblanc, Countess of Cervera, and Lady of Balaguer.If she becomes queen, Leonor will be Spain’s first female ruler since Isabella II, who ruled from 1833 until she was deposed in 1868 and is the only queen who has ruled a unified Spain in her own right rather than through marriage.Leonor studied for an international baccalaureate in Glamorgan, Wales, and this year will complete her three-year military training in preparation for her role as commander-in-chief.