The Bank of England is urging Elon Musk's X to crack down on deepfake adverts depicting Governor Andrew Bailey fighting Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. The posts have circulated on the social media platform in recent days and link to fake news articles that wrongly claim Mr Farage confronted Mr Bailey on the BBC's Question Time show.

The articles promoted investment schemes, which Mr Bailey said were "scams" designed to exploit people. The bank has reported the videos to X and informed Reform UK. On Monday, Mr Bailey said: "Unfortunately, fake adverts impersonating the Bank of England and other central banks are on the rise.

"These scams are designed to criminally exploit the public, especially the vulnerable, when they are online.

"I would urge everyone to stay vigilant and report these scams. That way authorities can better root out digital deception like this and permanently remove the fraudsters responsible for what is a truly online scourge."

Mr Farage said on X: "You may have seen some bizarre AI videos on this platform today.

"Whilst Andrew Bailey and I have our disagreements, I would never take it that far!"

The Reform UK leader can be seen holding a gun in one of the AI-generated deepfakes.

The fake images often show Mr Bailey and Mr Farage being separated by police officers.

Cybersecurity experts Bitdefender told The Telegraph: "This is a global, co-ordinated investment scam ecosystem."

It said the network appears to be tied to Russian-language criminal scammers pursuing "financially motivated criminal activity".

A spokesman said its researchers were "confident that it is highly likely the X campaign" was part of the same scam network it uncovered on Facebook.

X was approached for comment.