AI incident ·
Purported AI-Generated Deepfake of Spiritual Leader Sadhguru Used in Investment Scam Allegedly Defrauding Bengaluru Woman of ₹3.75 Crore (~$425,000)
On this page 9 sections
In brief
An AI system built by Synthetic media generation technology developers, Synthetic audio generation technology developers and 1 other and deployed by Waleed B (scammer impersonating Sadhguru), Synthetic media creators and 5 others allegedly harmed Women and girls, Women and 8 others.
- Risk domain
- Malicious Actors & Misuse
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 2 reports
What happened
A 57-year-old woman in Bengaluru was allegedly defrauded of ₹3.75 crore (~$425,000 USD) after scammers used a purportedly AI-generated deepfake video of spiritual leader Sadhguru to promote a fake investment platform called Mirrox. The victim was reportedly recruited via Instagram and WhatsApp and was persuaded through trading tutorials on Zoom and fabricated profit screenshots. She reportedly realized the fraud only when withdrawals were blocked and additional fees were demanded.
Editor's notes
Timeline note: The reported scam occurred between February 25th to April 23rd, 2025; it was picked up by the press in early-to-mid September 2025.
Laws on record for this risk area
Policy angle: Classified under Malicious Actors & Misuse (Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation) in the MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy; 5 instruments on record cover this risk area.
- India DPDP Act
- Law on Artificial Intelligence (2025)
- Law No. 132/2025 on artificial intelligence
- EU AI Act
- Texas Responsible AI Governance Act (TRAIGA)
Matched from the record's risk category and country to the instruments in effect recorded here: a law listed covers the area, which is not a finding that it applies to this incident. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).
News reports (2)
Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.
Who was involved
- Alleged deployer
- Waleed B (scammer impersonating Sadhguru) Synthetic media creators Scammers impersonating Sadhguru Mirrox Michael C (scammer impersonating Sadhguru) Impersonation scammers Deepfake creators
- Alleged developer
- Synthetic media generation technology developers Synthetic audio generation technology developers Deepfake technology developers
- Alleged harmed party
- Women and girls Women Victims of investment scams Victims of impersonation scams Unnamed 57-year-old woman in Bengaluru targeted by scammers impersonating Sadhguru Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev General public of India General public of Bengaluru General public Epistemic integrity
AI systems implicated
ZoomWhatsAppSynthetic media generation technologySynthetic audio generation technologyMirroxInstagramDeepfake technology
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
- Risk domain
- Malicious Actors & Misuse
- Risk subdomain
- 4.3 Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
- Causal entity
- Human
- Intent
- Intentional
- Timing
- Post-deployment
- Harm level
- —
- Sectors
- —
- Countries
- —
Risk entries describing this failure mode
Entries from the MIT AI Risk Repository coded to subdomain 4.3.
- IP/copyright loss
"IP/copyright loss - Misuse or abuse of an individual or organisation’s intellectual property, including copyright, trademarks, and patents."
- Cheating/plagiarism
"Cheating/plagiarism - Use of another person’s or group’s words or ideas without consent and/or acknowledgement."
- Defamation/libel/slander
"Defamation/libel/slander - Use of a technology system to create, facilitate or amplify false perception(s) about an individual, group, or organisation."
- Financial and business
"Financial and Business - Use or misuse of a technology system in a manner that damages the financial interests of an individual or group, or which causes strategic, operational, legal or financial harm to a business or...
- Impersonation/identity theft
"Impersonation/identity theft - Theft of an individual, group or organisation’s identity by a third-party in order to defraud, mock or otherwise harm them."
- Dehumanisation/objectification
"Dehumanisation/objectification - Use or misuse of a technology system to depict and/or treat people as not human, less than human, or as objects."
- Cybersecurity
"LLMs may exacerbate cybersecurity risks in various ways (Newman, 2024). Firstly, LLMs may significantly amplify the effectiveness of deceptive operations aimed at tricking people into disclosing sensitive information or...
- Misinformation and Manipulation
"Recent studies have demonstrated that LLMs can be exploited to craft deceptive narratives with levels of persuasiveness similar to human-generated content (Pan et al., 2023b; Spitale et al., 2023), to fabri- cate fake n...
Related incidents
Linked by editors or by text similarity in the source dataset.
- Purported AI-Generated Deepfake of Infosys Co-Founder N. R. Narayana Murthy Used in Investment Scam Allegedly Defrauding 79-Year-Old Bengaluru Woman of ₹35 Lakh (~$40,000)
- Driverless Train in Delhi Crashes due to Braking Failure
- Manufacturing Robot Failure Caused Factory Worker's Death in India
- Worker killed by robot in welding accident at car parts factory in India
Incidents in the same risk subdomain
- Italian Mediaset Journalist Safiria Leccese's Image Was Reportedly Used in a Purportedly AI-Generated Fake Loan Scam
- Scammers Reportedly Used AI-Cloned Daughter's Voice to Defraud Bay Area Mother in Fake Kidnapping Call
- Guelph, Ontario, Woman Reportedly Lost $14,000 in Purported Deepfake MrBeast Cryptocurrency Scam
- Purportedly AI-Recreated Clips from Beastie Boys' 'Sabotage' Video Reportedly Appeared in FBI Promotional Video Posted by Kash Patel
- Ahmedabad Aadhaar Fraud Racket Reportedly Used Purportedly AI-Generated Deepfakes to Change Businessman's Linked Mobile Number
- ChatGPT Was Reportedly Consulted on Body-Disposal and Concealment Questions Before and After University of South Florida Doctoral Students Were Killed
Source record: incident #1206 on the AI Incident Database · all 2 reports