By Shefali Srivastava
"After just one dose, my blood sugar level became normal. I am happy. I had diabetes for the last 20 years, but this medicine cured me in three days. My sugar level has become normal. I am happy that I can live a full life,"claim Uttar Pradesh's Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Mathura MP Hema Malini in sponsored videos that are viral on Facebook.
However, the statements and videos that show them are not real and are made using the voice clones of these popular public figures to claim their endorsement of a fake diabetes medicine.
Meta platforms, especially Facebook, are full of such fake advertisements, where AI voice clones of politicians, Bollywood celebrities and news anchors are being used to victimise users.
Interestingly, most of these advertisements are sponsored posts and hence, do not appear on the profiles of any users that have paid for said ads. Additionally, the accounts paying for them are most likely fake.
What do the videos contain?
A sponsored video on Facebook shows Yogi Adityanath, Hema Malini, Akshay Kumar, and journalist Sudhir Chaudhary promoting this diabetes cure. Along with this, the video leads users to an external link claiming to show its price.
BOOM's fact-checks have revealed that the original videos of Yogi Adityanath, Hema Malini, Akshay Kumar, and Sudhir Chaudhary were cropped and overlaid with an AI-generated voice clone to make the false claims.
While Yogi Adityanath and Hema Malini's videos have been created from their interviews to news channel ABP, Akshay Kumar's video was made using his four-year-old interview with Hindustan Times. Sudhir Chaudhary's video is from his own news bulletin titled 'Black and White'.
We also tested the viral videos on Itisaar, a deepfake detection tool created by IIT Jodhpur, which estimated that the videos were created using deepfake technology.
These videos are shared as sponsored posts by different accounts and pages, viz., Good lobs, Lenin Grib, Croissant Hot, Diamond Doctor, Forestry Service, Pumpkin plany, Lenina Paket, Dr GR Badlani, and Laut Products.
BOOM has previously fact-checked other similar videos of President Draupadi Murmu and journalists Ravish Kumar, Arnab Goswami, and Anjana Om Kashyap promoting this cure.
How dangerous are these videos?
These advertisements use AI voice clones of popular celebrities and public figures to mislead and defraud users. For instance, clicking one of the links in the ad redirected us to the website of famous diabetologist from Gujarat, Dr GR Badlani. (archive).
When BOOM reached out to Dr GR Badlani, he refuted the viral claims and said, "This is wrong. I have a diabetes center but I do not sell such medicines. For the last few days, I have been getting calls from people asking me for medicines to cure diabetes."
He added, "I also searched for the ads on Facebook but I could not find them, because of which I have not been able to lodge a complaint with the police."
Similarly, in March 2024, an FIR was registered against an account named Grace Garcia regarding another fake video showing UP CM Yogi Adityanath promoting a medicine for diabetes.
According to the Hindustan Times, the complainant said, "In the video, CM Yogi is saying that this medicine has been developed by Indian scientists and whoever buys the medicine by visiting the website will be honored by God."
BOOM spoke to Inspector Mohammad Muslim Khan, who had filed the complaint. He said, "In March, two such cases came to our notice on which a case was registered. We had escalated our complaint to the cyber crime police station, where the case took place."
He added, “Since this was a governance related matter, we constantly monitor such cases.” Inspector Mohammad Muslim Khan is posted in the cyber crime office of the Director General of Police.
Why this trend is gaining momentum
One reason why this trend, or scam, has caught on is because it is tough for the parties involved to locate the videos in order to register complaints against them. Since these videos are sponsored posts, they are not visible on any user's profile, but can rather be found in the Meta Ad Library.
We ran a search for 'diabetes' on the Meta Ad Library and found several ads carrying these voice clones of Yogi Adityanath and Hema Malini. One of these profiles was that of a Lenin Grib, whose page sponsored the advertisement five times on May 7.
However, once we clicked on Lenin Grib's profile, all we could see was a profile picture with Akshay Kumar's photo, a brief bio that identified the person as an 'actor', and a few other photos. The profile did not carry any of the diabetes cure videos it had sponsored.
On the challenges of busting such scams, Cyber Crime Inspector Muslim Khan said, "Often, it is tough to find the source from where the account is being operated. Criminals sitting in any corner of the world can send such fake messages. There have been many such cases in which a criminal based in India was running an account by changing its location. That is why it is challenging to trace these accounts."
BOOM also reached out to Meta regarding this, who told us that this matter was currently being investigated.
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