By Anmol Alphonso
A video of Mukesh Ambani making an announcement for an investment fund for women and appointing a certain Laila Rao to head the same is fake and part of an elaborate online scam.
Making tall claims that any woman in India can "double her money" by learning how to invest like Laila Rao, the viral video uses visuals of the Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani to endorse Rao and lend it authenticity.
The video also uses photos of several other celebrities including Alia Bhatt and Katrina Kaif claiming they have benefited by heeding investment advice from "Laila Rao".
BOOM found the videos are fake and part of an online scam that uses visuals of celebrities to make it seem authentic. We also found that the woman being shown as 'Laila Rao' in the video is in fact television actress Smriti Khanna whose visuals have been misused to dupe people into the said scam.
A Reliance Industries spokesperson also confirmed to BOOM that the video is fake and that Ambani has made no such investment appeal.
Ambani is the Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries and is among the wealthiest people in the world. Ambani recently made a slew of announcements during his company’s 46th Annual General Meeting (AGM) on August 28, 2023.
In the video, Ambani can be heard asking people especially women to invest in the fund. After this speech, visuals of a woman claiming to be Laila Rao appear on screen where she asks to message her on the Telegram channel link if they wish to double their money.
BOOM also found other instances of similar videos, that use visuals of popular figures like industrialist Ratan Tata and Jaggi Vasudev the spiritual guru known as Sadhguru to dupe people.
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FACT-CHECK
We found that the audio has been overlaid to make the false claim of Mukesh Ambani asking people to invest their money in a 'Woman investment project' under the leadership of 'Laila Rao'.
Upon analysing the video, we found several instances of editing. We first ran a keyword search for the speech that Ambani is giving and that led us to an Annual General Meeting address of Reliance Industries in 2021.
Ambani can be seen wearing the same outfit as in the viral video and parts from his speech have been used in the viral video.
Below is the link to the original visual used in the viral video.
A comparison can be seen below
Additionally, we found that the woman in the viral video who is shown to be Laila Rao is in fact actress Smriti Khanna.
Khanna's photos and videos from her public Instagram profile have been used in the viral videos to make it seem like she is Laila Rao.
Below is one such comparison
Click here to view the original Instagram post.
We found all the photos in the viral video on Khanna's profile and none of the captions for them talk about any kind of monetary investment.
We then found a reel on her profile, where she is talking. A comparison of this with the voice in the viral video show that they do not match.
BOOM also reached out to Khanna, the article will be updated upon a response.
A search for "Laila Rao + investment + money" led us to several complaints lodged against the scheme on an online forum called Consumer Complaints Court. The forum allows people to register complaints in cases where they have allege being duped.
Most people who had registered a complaint against "Laila Rao" alleged that they had transfered money using details provided on their Telegram channel and had then not heard back from the account or seen any proof of investment.
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