A fake post from Elon Musk promising $5,000 to each registrant at a crypto-casino appeared on the official Instagram account of the Spanish army on the night of June 14 to 15, 2026. Hackers took advantage of the account’s institutional authority to trap unsuspecting subscribers. Personal data would have been collected before the post was deleted.
The official Instagram account of Ejército de Tierra – the Spanish Army, with more than 260,000 subscribers – was hacked on the night of June 14, 2026. Cybercriminals published a cryptocurrency scam impersonating Elon Musk.
A fake tweet from Elon Musk in the official window
Around midnight, the account’s subscribers saw a screenshot appear of an alleged tweet from Elon Musk, entrepreneur and richest man in the world, owner of SpaceX and the social network X (formerly Twitter). The message was entirely fabricated, but presented with enough plausibility to deceive less vigilant users.
In this false tweet, Musk announced that he was offering $5,000 to each new registrant in a “crypto-casino” whose opening he had supervised, with the promise of immediate withdrawal of winnings. This proven scheme – promise of immediate gains, affiliate link, data collection – took on a new dimension here by relying on the authority of an official military account.
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Access to the fraudulent site was via a link accompanied by a promotional code, in exchange for personal data. According to El Caso, users may have provided their contact details before the post was deleted. The post was quickly removed.
A documented technique, a unique institutional target
The impersonation of Elon Musk for the purposes of cryptocurrency fraud is a practice widely spread on Instagram and scams. What distinguishes this episode is the target: an official military account, whose institutional authority increases the credibility of the fraudulent message among the general public.
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This incident serves as a reminder that even organizations with rigorous security protocols remain vulnerable to attacks targeting their social networks. No official communication from Ejército de Tierra had been published at the time this article was posted online.
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