Good morning. I’m Mariya Postelnyak, The Globe’s consumer affairs reporter. For the past week, I’ve been digging into a scam that hits close to home.

Fraudsters on Facebook and Instagram have been impersonating financial commentators and advisers, including Globe contributor David Rosenberg, BMO’s Brian Belski and Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf.

More on how the scam has played out below. First, let’s catch up on an eventful weekend:

Iran: A U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear sites could push oil prices even higher and trigger a knee-jerk rush to safety. Investors are assessing how the latest escalation of tensions could ripple through the global economy.

Defence: NATO countries agreed on a statement yesterday for their upcoming summit that sets a goal of 5 per cent of GDP for annual defence and security-related spending by 2035.

Manufacturing: With its key auto sector under pressure from U.S. tariffs, Ontario is pivoting to the European defence market.

Tariffs: Prime Minister Mark Carney has asked Kirsten Hillman to stay on as Canada’s ambassador to Washington. She will take on the role of chief negotiator with the Trump administration.

Today: Carney is in Europe to meet with leaders ahead of the NATO summit.

Tomorrow: Statistics Canada reports inflation for May. The Bank of Canada is concerned that underlying inflationary pressures led by trade disruption and uncertainty could persist for an “extended period.”

Friday: Analysts are expecting Canadian GDP for April to show a clear slowdown after exporters rushed to move goods across the border ahead of U.S. tariff deadlines.

Notable earnings: BlackBerry reports tomorrow; AGF Management Ltd. and Alimentation Couche-Tard are both up on Wednesday.

Shortly after I started work last Monday, our investment team received an e-mail from one of our regular contributors, David Rosenberg.

Over the phone, he explained that he’d recently been impersonated in an online scam and had spent the past two months frantically trying to put out the fires. He sounded exhausted.

As a Wall Street and Bay Street veteran, Rosenberg is no stranger to impersonation scams. He’s grown somewhat used to seeing his name and image misused online.

But when a friend texted him about the “Wolfpack program” in late April, he knew something about this scam was different.

He remembers the friend saying: ‘Is this something that small fish like us can invest in, or is it just for the big fish?’ ”

His consultancy firm, Rosenberg Research, offers ETF-based model portfolios that clients can mirror. It doesn’t offer any investment programs under the name “Wolfpack.”

In the weeks that followed, Rosenberg and his team, including his son Jacob, heard from dozens of people who’d been lured into collectively investing more than $1-million in a sophisticated pump-and-dump scheme boasting David’s name.

I spoke to a handful of the alleged victims, who described the scam as follows: They’d spot a sponsored ad on Facebook or Instagram featuring a photo of David in suit and tie, promising to help “select good stocks” with returns of 30 to 70 per cent. Clicking the ad led them to a WhatsApp group, which appeared to be full of eager investors (though they now suspect most were bots).

At first, the victims had their doubts. All of them began by putting in tiny amounts in the recommended stocks, which they did through their own trading platform of choice.

One person I spoke with remembers seeing 300-per-cent returns in just a month. Others reported similar initial gains. They grew bold and invested more, finding safety in a promise from the scammers to cover at least 80 per cent of losses.

One 60-year-old Saskatchewan man told me he ultimately invested $460,000, including his entire life savings. But just as quickly as the stocks had soared, they crashed.

When victims confronted the scammers on WhatsApp groups, they were often removed. Embarrassed to go to the police, many contacted Rosenberg directly instead.

That’s part of the problem, Detective David Coffey of the Toronto Police Financial Crimes Unit told me. A lack of formal reports from victims makes it exceedingly difficult to investigate.

To make matters worse, scams that involve impersonating financial experts are only multiplying.