Criminals who use images of celebrities such as the Duchess of Cambridge, Holly Willoughby and Martin Lewis in fake adverts online can make more than £800,000 a day from their scams.

A report says that flawed regulation is allowing gangs to make money from fake adverts that appear automatically at the bottom of news websites, blogs and other online content.

Often the adverts make false claims to encourage readers to click, such as one that showed the Duchess of Cambridge with a black eye under the headline: “Kate finally reveals what caused the dispute.” Readers who clicked on the image were taken to a fake website for face cream that took their money but did not deliver.

Other adverts include Lewis purporting to encourage people