By The Hindu Bureau
Copyright thehindu
The East Division Cybercrime Police have registered an FIR against a man for cheating a 57-year-old retired woman of ₹3.75 crore using an AI-generated deepfake video of spiritual leader Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, promising a huge returns on her investment.
The victim, Varsha Gupta, a resident of C.V. Raman Nagar, saw a video of Sadhguru while scrolling through social media, which showed him endorsing an investment company.
“I watched a video of Sadhguru stating that he had been trading with the firm, for which a link is provided below and if you click it and input your name, email, phone number for an amount of $250, your finances will improve greatly,” the woman said in her complaint.
Unaware that it was made using deepfake technology, she followed the instructions for investment. Soon, she was contacted by a person who called himself Waleed B., who claimed to represent a company called Mirrox which had multiple apps and comprised around 100 members as investors.
Mr. Waleed B asked the complainant to download the Mirrox application and taught her how to trade through Zoom application.
Later Michael C., an associate of Waleed, contacted the complainant and would teach the woman about trading when Waleed was unavailable. Following these instructions, between February 25, 2025 and April 23, 2025, the woman invested a total of ₹3,75,72,121, from her State Bank of India and HSBC bank accounts to multiple unknown accounts provided in the Mirrox application.
The fraud came to light when the victim made futile attempts to withdraw the invested money and failed, and later checked with her family and friends only to realise that she had been duped.
Similar case
In another case, a 35-year-old homemaker lost ₹1.43 crore to an investment scam and approached the Central Division Cybercrime Police. The victim, Neeraja S.K., a resident of Mission Road, told the police that she was contacted by the accused by sending an investment offer on Whatsapp, offering double the amount in quick time.
The victim expressed interest following which the accused sent her a trading app link and added her to a group of investors. Between June 16 and September 6, the victim transferred a total of ₹1,43,00,000 on different dates.
