A 76-year-old man faced extortion and was pushed to the verge of suicide by alleged online scammers, who used a deepfake image of a retired IPS to threaten and harass him.
The police have registered a case regarding the matter and began the investigation.
The harassment began over a month ago when 76-year-old Arvind Sharma bought an Android phone and made a Facebook profile.
Sharma received a video call on the app on October 20 which he answered, police said, adding that on the other side of the call was a naked woman. Sharma ended the call but his trouble began from there, police said.
"Sharma was shown some morphed picture of him with the naked woman. He later received a video call from a man, who identified himself as a senior police officer from Dwarka and alleged that he is being made an accused in a suicide case of the woman," said Kavi Nagar Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Abhishek Srivastav on Saturday.
Sharma got scared and deposited Rs 24,000 in the account given by the accused. He later borrowed Rs 50,000 and sent it too. The extortionist, however, demanded more money from him. Scared of his name being sullied and unable to arrange any more money, the elderly was pushed to the brink of suicide. Finally, he confided in his family, who approached the police.
“We came to know that a deepfake video of a retired IPS officer from UP, Prem Prakash, was shown to the elderly as the senior officer from Dwarka. A case regarding the incident has been registered and investigations are underway," said the ACP.
Deepfakes refer to digitally altered media (audio or video) of a person to make him or her appear to be someone else.
“It appears that the accused morphed an old video of the officer (retired IPS) by changing the audio and background voice. On close examination, the voice and lip movement do not sync. It can be said to be a morphed or deepfake video,” the ACP said.
Based on the complaint, the police lodged an FIR on November 21 and initiated the probe. The Ghaziabad Police has also written to Meta for assistance in the case and sent the deepfake video for forensic examination.
