Accused who created Rashmika Mandanna's deepfake is ‘huge fan’, wanted to increase followers

New Delhi: Delhi Police said it has arrested the main accused in a case involving creation of a deepfake video of a renowned film actress, believed to be Rashmika Mandanna.

The accused, identified as Eemani Naveen (23), was arrested from Guntur in Andhra Pradesh on Saturday after a thorough investigation based on a complaint, police said.

A laptop and 3 mobile phones have been seized from the accused by the IFSO (Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations) unit of Delhi Police.

The police said the accused claimed to be a big fan of the targeted film actress and resorted to the illegal act to increase his followers on social media.

The police did not name the actress but it is believed that the matter relates to Rashmika Mandanna whose deepfake video went viral in October last year.

“To increase the followers, the accused created the deepfake video of the actress and posted it on the fan page on 13th October 2023," Dy Commissioner of Police IFSO Hemant Tiwari told a press conference here.

Due to this deepfake video, the fan following of this page increased from 90,000 to 1,08000 within two weeks, he said.

The accused did B-Tech in Electronics and Communication in 2021 and was providing services of Photoshop, Instagram channel promotion, YouTube video creation/editing and SEO on the basis of charges, the police officer said.

During questioning, the accused said he was operating fan pages of the said actress and two more renowned celebrities, Tiwari said, adding Naveen was managing all three pages and uploading original and clean videos.

However, the accused deleted the said post from the Instagram channel and also changed the name of the Insta channel. He had also deleted the relevant digital data from his devices.

During the preliminary analysis, it was found that the original video was uploaded by a British Indian girl on her Instagram account in October 2023 and later on deep fake video of a noted film actress was created and circulated on various social media platforms.