Gang Extorting Money By Morphing Images Of Victims On Porn Videos On UP Cyber Police Radar

Uttar Pradesh cyber crime police is on the verge of catching yet another group of cyber criminals. This time these criminals are part of a gang known for blackmailing and extorting money from businessmen, working professionals and students by using their images on deepfake porn videos, and threatening to post them to social media.

Lately, the cybercrime cell had been flooded with complaints where fraudsters had acquired their details from their social media accounts and called them using pre-recorded videos in female voices, encouraging them to engage in conversation.

These fraudsters then use frozen frames of male victims and superimpose them on porn clips using this deepfake technology. After creating these fake porn videos, these fraudsters would then call up the male victims in the video and blackmail them for money, anything ranging between Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000.

These victims were threatened into paying the money by making claims of releasing their videos publicly available on social media.

“Over 200 cases have been recorded in the state in which cyber criminals created fake pornographic videos of victims and demanded ransom by threatening to post the videos on social media,” said SP (Cyber Crime) Triveni Singh.

Singh said that criminals are also taking advantage of accounts which are not locked and friend list, contacts, images, post and videos can be accessed easily.

“We started a probe and found victims’ faces had been morphed to create objectionable video clips. We have tracked the fraudsters by using technical intelligence and will arrest them. Soon these people will be arrested,” Singh added.

Mewat, Bharatpur and Mathura which forms the tri-junction of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh is notoriously known as the hub of phishing and cyber frauds.

Cellular devices in these areas catch networks from other states, and signals frequently change from one cell tower to another which provides a shield to these fraudsters. This shield has become a ‘black spot’ making it difficult for authorities to track down the exact location of the device. Apart from that, the fraudsters have SIM cards in bulk brought in from North East states on fake documents. 

Sensity, an Amsterdam-based visual threat intelligence company, found videos like these had increased from 7,964 in December 2018 to 49,081 in June 2020. Nearly 96% of these videos were pornographic in nature; the top four websites received over 134million views until 2019.

In recent months, there have also been bots on messaging apps like Telegram that could turn an image of a fully clothed person into their nude photo. Nearly 680,000 people – including Indians – had been targeted by such bots, according to a Sensity report.

These deepfake videos have not only become a form of blackmail, but also a form of embarrassment on social media these days. With a lot of open source, free and easy to use softwares online, it has become easier to acquire these images. I have come across many accounts on Instagram selling “packs” of nude photos of women. These “packs” are sold to buyers, each containing either 3, 5 or 10 photographs based on the amount the buyer is willing to pay. Some accounts are private, making it harder to track down the actual owner of the account.

Even during the Delhi elections in February a video of Manoj Tiwari, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, was circulated on Whatsapp. This video was of him criticising Aravind Kejriwal in Haryanvi. The voice was dubbed by a professional artist and was lip-synced by a deepfake software. The party later on went to say it was a one-time experiment and wasn’t a part of a social media campaign.

With the way our technology is growing, it is utmost necessary to take care of what you are consuming, where it is coming from, and most importantly, making sure your content is safe. A recent article on livemint suggested ways to identify deepfake videos. Some ways to identify a deepfake video is to look for these signs-

●       The image and sound aren’t in sync.

●       There is a lag in the emotions on the person’s face.

●       Their teeth look like a single block.

●       The background of the video is foggy or looks to be pixelated.

●       Even if the light conditions do not change, there is a flicker in the colours of the video.

While in today’s day and age these signs may become irrelevant with the way technology is growing, make sure to only consume videos that seem to come from sources that are fact checked, or come from verified sources of information.   

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