The vile AI scam using gutwrenching stories to tug at the heartstrings of footy fans and steal your cash – but none of it is real
A fake Facebook fan page called Tigers Dynasty has been circulating AI-generated posts falsely claiming AFL star Tom Lynch has terminal brain cancer, using a fabricated video and article to lure grieving fans into clicking a phishing link designed to steal personal and financial details. Richmond Football Club confirmed the story is untrue and warned it is part of an ongoing problem, with an insider noting that shutting down one fake site simply leads to another appearing. The scam is particularly cruel given its timing, as Lynch and his wife Olivia are due to welcome their first child.
The same page has spread other fabricated stories, including a false claim that former Richmond player Alex Rance died in a plane crash (illustrated with genuine images from an unrelated Amazon cargo plane crash) and a fake report of a teenage son of a "Richmond legend" dying of cardiac arrest, apparently lifted from the real death of 13-year-old Caden Sorrell in North Carolina. Identical hoax stories have also appeared on pages posing as fan groups for Collingwood, the Sydney Swans and the NRL's Wests Tigers, suggesting a coordinated scam operation. The Australian Federal Police has urged social media users to be wary of such posts, warning that criminals exploit moments when people are distracted or emotionally affected to trick them into visiting fake websites.
- Fake AI posts falsely claimed AFL star Tom Lynch has terminal cancer
- Posts link to phishing sites designed to steal personal/financial data
- Same scam network has targeted multiple AFL and NRL fan pages
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Scammers have set up a fake Facebook fan page for the AFL club Richmond, called Tigers Dynasty, and used artificial intelligence to fabricate news stories about players and their families. In the most recent case, the page falsely claimed star player Tom Lynch has terminal brain cancer, complete with an AI-generated video and article, hoping grieving fans would click a link designed to steal their personal and banking details.
This is not an isolated incident. The same page has previously spread other fake stories, including a false report that former player Alex Rance died in a plane crash, and a fabricated account of a child's death lifted from an unrelated real-life tragedy overseas. Similar hoaxes have appeared on pages impersonating fan groups for other clubs, including Collingwood, the Sydney Swans and the Wests Tigers rugby league team, suggesting the same scammers may be running several fake pages at once.
The Australian Federal Police has flagged this as part of a wider pattern, in which criminals use emotionally charged, AI-generated content to catch people off guard and lure them to fraudulent websites. Richmond Football Club has confirmed the Lynch story is false, but says that removing one fake page tends to be followed by another appearing in its place.