The fraudster impersonated the New England MP, sending messages to his friends with the promise of a free "grant".

"I got $50,000 delivered to me when I apply for the grant and you don't have to pay it back, you can also apply too," the hacker said in a message.

"Should I give you the agent private text number so that you can apply as well [sic]."

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The person on the receiving end of the messages said "it almost sounds too good to be true".

"I thought same here the time they introduced grant to me too," the hacker responded,

"I didn't believe on till [sic] now. I'm sharing my testimony to you."

The hacker then tried to convince them with a photo showing a wad of American dollar notes.

Mr Joyce apologised for the incident on his official politician Facebook page and urged people not to fall for the scam.

"Sorry guys, I've been hacked so if you get a message like this from me please ignore and report it to Facebook," Mr Joyce said.

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