That Doctor Selling a Miracle Cure on Your Feed? It Might Not Be Him.

Dr Onn Akbar Ali is a real cardiologist at KPJ Kajang. Last week, thousands of Malaysians watched “him” on social media, warmly recommending a herbal tea that supposedly cures diabetes. Same face. Similar voice. One problem: he never said any of it.

As reported by Bernama and NST on 19 August, the video was a deepfake — AI-generated footage built from the doctor’s real appearances, run through an account calling itself “Dr On Ali”. It’s part of a wave of scam ads cloning trusted Malaysian medical figures to sell supplements and counterfeit health products.

This is a health story, but it’s also a money story: the product is fake, the payment is real, and the playbook is coming for financial products next. Here’s how to spot it.

What happened to Dr Onn

The scam followed a pattern investigators have seen repeatedly: take a genuine specialist with public credibility, harvest footage of them from interviews and hospital videos, generate a clip of them “endorsing” a product, then run it as a paid ad through a lookalike account. The misspelt account name — “Dr On Ali” instead of Dr Onn Akbar Ali — was one of the few visible cracks.

The doctor has publicly disowned the videos, and reports have been lodged. But by the time a deepfake is reported and pulled, it has usually done its selling.

Why deepfake doctor scams work so well

Because they stack three powerful things: authority (a specialist in a white coat), desperation (chronic illness is expensive and exhausting — a RM99 “cure” feels cheaper than a lifetime of clinic visits), and the oldest instinct of all: video feels like proof. We’re trained to disbelieve text and trust footage. That training is now obsolete. With deepfake scams getting harder to spot, it is always prudent to take extra caution.

Three tells that give a deepfake away

No single tell is conclusive, but together they’re a reliable filter. One: spelling. Scam accounts and captions routinely misspell the doctor’s name, the hospital, or basic medical terms — cloning a face is easy, proofreading apparently isn’t. Two: the mouth. Watch the lips against the audio; deepfakes still drift out of sync, especially on Malay and Tamil consonants. Three: the claim itself. Real doctors do not announce cures for diabetes, hypertension or cancer in a 40-second ad. The bigger the promise, the faker the video.

Two checks before you buy any health product online

First, check the product: every registered medicine and traditional health product in Malaysia carries a Ministry of Health hologram label with a registration number — verify it with the official MyUbat app before paying. No hologram, no purchase. Second, check the person: search the doctor’s name on the hospital’s official website or verified page. If the “endorsement” doesn’t appear anywhere official, it isn’t an endorsement.

Already paid? Do this now

Move fast: call your bank immediately to attempt to stop or dispute the transaction, then call BNMTELELINK at 1-300-88-5465 for guidance, and lodge a police report with screenshots of the ad, the account and the payment. Report the ad on the platform too — takedowns rely on user reports far more than they should.

The next wave: fake agents and advisers

The same toolkit is already being aimed at money. Cloned “insurance agents” and “fund managers” with real-sounding credentials are appearing in ads and WhatsApp groups. The defence is identical: verify the person through the insurer’s or bank’s official agent-check channels, and never pay a premium or an “investment” into a personal bank account. A real agent’s company has a corporate account. A scammer has a cousin’s.

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