The Office of the President has filed a police report regarding a fake article which has been spreading on the internet in recent days.

The article is the same one which The Malta Independent filed a report about two days ago, on the basis that the article presented itself as being on this newsroom’s website, when this newsroom has nothing to do with the article.

The report, which is called ‘SPECIAL REPORT: President Calls This Maltese Lucky “Economic Support Payment 2.0”’, started circulating on the internet using the image of and quoting the President of Malta George Vella in the most misleading way.

The story encourages people to invest on an online trading platform and includes supposed comments from the President of Malta, George Vella.

The story is completely fake.

It is an example of what is known as spoofing, a broad term for behaviour that involves a cybercriminal masquerading as a trusted entity to get users to do something beneficial to the hacker — and detrimental to them.

“The Office of the President draws the attention of the public that this report is false, and that President Vella never gave this interview. Regarding this report, the Office of the President filed a report with the Cyber Crime Unit of the Malta Police Force and is being investigated,” the President’s office said in a statement.

The Malta Independent has also filed a police report on the matter.