In November 2023, a deepfake video of actress Rashmika went viral. Delhi Police has arrested the accused in the deepfake video case. According to a report, now actress Rashmika Mandanna has recorded her statement before the police in this matter. According to the information received, the IFSO team of Delhi Police Special Cell, which is investigating the deepfake video case, has recorded Rashmika's statement in Mumbai. The IFSO (Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations Unit) cyber crime unit of Delhi Police has arrested Imani Naveen, a 24-year-old engineer from Andhra Pradesh. Delhi Police had registered an FIR in this matter on 10 November 2023. Rashmika's deepfake was made by the same person.
IFSO DCP Hemant Tiwari said that the case was registered on November 10, 2023, on the complaint of DCW. After which a lot of effort was put into the technical investigation of the video. This video was first uploaded on Instagram by a British Indian girl on 9 October 2023. In which the post was shared on different social media platforms on 13 October 2023 by deepfaking Rashmika's face. During the investigation, more than 500 social media accounts were searched, which helped Meta a lot and it took 2-3 weeks to recover the data of the deleted accounts. IFSO team went to many states. Imani Naveen was eventually arrested from Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. The accused also confessed to his crime.
Accused uploaded deepfake video to increase followers: Police
Accused Imani Naveen was running the fan page of Rashmika Mandanna. But even after running Rashmika's fan page for one and a half years, she had only 90 thousand followers, which increased to 1 lakh 8 thousand after uploading the video. The purpose of making this deepfake video was not to harm the actress. The accused wanted to earn money and increase his followers through meta monetization. So he took a video editing course from a YouTube channel and made Rashmika's video.