Michaul Martin, an Irish politician and leader of the Fianna Fáil party, has sued the search engine Google for fraudulently advertising cryptocurrencies in his name.

Lawyers for Mícheál Martin have received permission from the Irish High Court to request information from Google Ireland and Google LLC about the persons who paid for cryptocurrency advertising with his image. The politician demanded to disclose the identities of these people and the accounts from which payments for advertising fraudulent crypto projects are made.

In the promotional materials, the attackers showed people a fabricated newspaper article with fake quotes from Martin claiming to support an automated cryptocurrency trading program. Thus, the scammers wanted to convince cryptocurrency traders and investors that their project could turn them into millionaires in three to four months. The article also alleged that the politician had received threats from large corporations due to the fact that advertised cryptographic software was earning him tens of thousands of euros every day.

Fianna Fáil complained to Google about the adverts and the company removed them for violating policy. Martin’s defense argues that the scam ads were originally approved by Google Ads, so the search giant assisted the criminals, albeit unintentionally. Martin is concerned that such advertising damages his reputation, as misinformation about politicians could undermine confidence in his work and the party as a whole. The politician considers it extremely important to hold fraudsters legally accountable: exposing them and breaking their anonymity will prevent further cases of fraud.

Last year, the former CEO of the largest crypto exchange Binance, Changpeng Zhao, also complained to Google. He discovered that the search engine continues to display phishing cryptocurrency sites in the ad block.