Ryan Tubridy hits out after his image is used in fake cryptocurrency Facebook ad

The RTE presenter’s image was used on a sponsored advertisement on the social media platform to promote a scam cryptocurrency trading program.

Upon clicking the link users were taken to a fake Independent.ie article where ‘Ryan’ is quoted as sharing his “secret” to becoming wealthy.

Hitting back at the fake advertisement, Ryan said he was walking down the street when someone stopped him to tell him about the ads.

“I really wanna make this really abundantly clear this morning that I have nothing to do with cryptocurrency. “

“I have nothing to do with those ads you see on Facebook and Instagram and on Twitter. I have nothing to do with it.

“This is a scam. We’re living in generation scam and the internet is alive and thriving with scams and financial cruelty to people who are vulnerable and I can tell you, when you see my face relating to cryptocurrency or any of these things…”

“Unfortunately, the difficulty is like whack-a-mole, as soon as they get rid of one, another comes up with my face… and the ad says something like ‘Ryan Tubridy backs cryptocurrency’...”

“Remember the ad ‘I don’t know what a tracker mortgage is’? Well I don’t know what cryptocurrency is.”

“To me it sounds like some ball of smoke thing,” he continued.

“I’m sure it's making some people somewhere a lot of money but I have nothing to do with it. So please tell all your friends when you see that ad… it’s not me,” he said.

“What I don't like about these gangsters is that they’re stealing, that's what they're doing.”

It’s gotten so bad now that nearly all the papers [are saying] that people in Ireland have lost millions in cryptocurrency based frauds.”

“And this is the problem. The gangs involved have developed more sophisticated ways of enticing unsuspecting victims into the bogus investment transactions.”

He’s not the only RTE star whose image has fallen foul of internet fraudsters.

In 2018, Miriam O’Callaghan was used by scam advertisers claiming that the star was set to ditch Prime Time in a bid to flog skincare products.

Just last month her case came before the high court where Meta Platforms Ireland, the owner of Facebook and Instagram.

As part of the settlement the company apologised to Miram O’Callaghan and agreed to establish a scam ad reporting tool that would allow Irish Facebook users to report suspect ads to a specialist content team to review.

Ryan said: “I admire her for taking the case because it’s costly in terms of time and energy as well as everything else but she won the case and I may not be far behind her.”

“It’s too much.”

“Garda sources said one victim they are aware of has lost about one million euro but most cases are around 50,000 to 200,000 so people have a lot of money that they invest, it’s a lot of money to invest.”

“This money was stolen after people were enticed into buying non-existent cryptocurrency.”

“The victims were lodging money into accounts run by organised crime gangs,” he explained.

“If you see it, be sceptical, and it’s a terrible thing to be.”