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A London restaurant was targeted by an AI mafia who bombarded it with fake negative reviews, demanding £10,000 in Bitcoin in a chilling extortion attempt.
X / Krisztina P – catSEO @r_krisztin

A London restaurant found itself under siege by an ‘AI mafia’ gang that bombarded it with fake negative reviews, demanding £10,000 to stop the attack.

Experts are warning that this sinister scheme could target more businesses next, urging, ‘Pray you’re not next.’

Nikolas Lemmel, founder of online reputation firm Maximatic Media, shared that the unnamed eatery turned to his company for help after being overwhelmed by the assault.

A flood of one-star reviews caused the restaurant’s Google rating to nosedive from an impressive 4.9 to a dismal 2.3 overnight, leaving the owner shocked and desperate for a solution.

‘AI Mafia’ Extorts London Restaurant

Nikolas stated that the malicious reviews falsely accused the independent restaurant of racism, food poisoning, and generally poor service.

Subsequently, the owner received an anonymous email from the ‘review-bombing mafia’, claiming responsibility and demanding a £10,000 ransom in Bitcoin cryptocurrency.

Nikolas revealed that the attackers orchestrated a sophisticated global operation, utilising AI-powered bot farms to flood Google with fake reviews.

These bots were designed to mimic the geolocation and user behaviour of genuine London-based customers accessing the internet via smartphones, thus circumventing Google’s review verification systems.

Maximatic Media collaborated with Google to remove fraudulent revi