Ahmedabad: The Ahmedabad Police Cyber Crime Branch on Wednesday arrested four men for allegedly using artificial intelligence tools, including Google Gemini, to create deepfake videos and carry out a fraudulent loan transaction by bypassing Aadhaar-based verification with triggering OTP text messages.
AI deepfakes to bypass Aadhaar verification
The case surfaced when a city-based businessman, engaged in import-export, noticed he had stopped receiving OTPs from his bank for two days. Sensing that something was wrong, he approached the police.
During the probe, officials found that the mobile number linked to his Aadhaar had been changed without OTP verification. Investigators also discovered that his biometric data had been manipulated to facilitate unauthorised access.
Further investigation revealed that a bank account had been opened in the victim’s name and a loan of Rs 25,000 was taken. The accused also accessed the businessman’s DigiLocker account to retrieve stored documents.
Deepfake used to bypass KYC
According to police officials, the gang used AI-generated deepfake videos of the victim to bypass Aadhaar biometric authentication. This allowed them to change the registered mobile number and redirect OTPs to a number controlled by the accused. Using the victim’s Aadhaar details, they attempted to open accounts across three banks via e-KYC. They were successful in creating one with Jio Payments Bank, they which they took a loan of Rs 25,000.
Police said one of the accused worked at a Common Service Centre and allegedly misused access to Aadhaar systems and official kits to execute the fraud. Officials added they were surprised by the sophistication of the method used.
The arrested accused have been identified as Kanubhai Parmar, Ashish Vanand, Mohammad Kaif Patel and Deep Gupta.