Swindlers drive man to brink of suicide

Ghaziabad, November 30

A 76-year-old man was pushed to the verge of suicide by alleged online scammers, who used a deepfake video of a retired IPS officer to threaten and harass him.

The suspects began harassing Arvind Sharma over a month ago when he bought an Android phone and made a Facebook profile.

The police said Sharma received a video call on the app on October 20 and there was a naked woman on the other side of the call.

“Sharma was shown a morphed picture of him with the naked woman. A man, who identified himself as a senior police officer from Dwarka, said Sharma was being made an accused in the suicide case of the woman,” said Kavi Nagar ACP Abhishek Srivastav.

Sharma got scared and deposited Rs 24,000 and later Rs 50,000 in the bank account given by the accused. But, when the accused demanded more money, he said he was pushed to the brink of suicide as he was unable to arrange the additional amount. 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 man as a senior officer from Dwarka. A case has been registered and investigation is underway,” said the ACP.

“It appears that the accused morphed an old video of the retired IPS officer by changing the audio and background voice. On close examination, it was found that the voice and lip movement are not in sync,” the ACP said.

The Ghaziabad Police has also written to Meta for assistance in the case. — PTI

Use deepfake video of retd IPS officr

We came to know that a deepfake video of a retired IPS officer from UP, Prem Prakash, was shown to the elderly man as a senior officer from Dwarka. — Abhishek Srivastav, acp, kavi nagar