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BBC News
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Babydoll Archi: Indian woman's identity stolen for erotic AI content in deepfake deception
It took just a few days for Indian Instagram sensation Babydoll Archi to double her following to 1.4 million, thanks to a couple of viral social media was a video that showed her in a red sari, dancing seductively to Dame Un Grr – a Romanian song. And a photo posted on the platform showed her posing with American adult film star Kendra everyone wanted to know about her - and the name Babydoll Archi trended in Google search and spawned countless memes and fan pages. But there was one issue about to emerge – there was no real woman behind the online Instagram account was fake, although the face it used had uncanny likeness to a real woman - a homemaker in Dibrugarh city in Assam, whom we'll call truth unravelled after her brother lodged a police complaint. Pratim Bora, Sanchi's ex-boyfriend, was police officer Sizal Agarwal who's heading the investigation told the BBC that Sanchi and Bora had a falling out and the AI likeness he created was to exact "pure revenge" on - a mechanical engineer and a self-taught artificial intelligence (AI) enthusiast - used private photos of Sanchi to create a fake profile, Ms Agarwal is in custody and has not made any statements yet. The BBC has reached out to his family and will update the article when they Archi was created in 2020 and the first uploads were made in May 2021. The initial photos were her real pictures that had been morphed, Ms Agarwal said."As time passed, Bora used tools such as ChatGPT and Dzine to create an AI version. He then populated the handle with deepfake photos and videos."The account started picking up likes from last year but it started gaining traction from April this year, she short two-paragraph complaint to the police submitted by Sanchi's family on the night of 11 July came with printouts of some photos and videos as Agarwal says it did not name anyone because they had no idea who could be behind it. Babydoll Archi was not an unfamiliar name for the police. Ms Agarwal says they had also seen media reports and comments speculating that she was AI generated, but there had been no suggestion that it was based on a real they received the complaint, police wrote to Instagram asking for the details of the account's creator."Once we received information from Instagram, we asked Sanchi if she knew any Pratim Bora. Once she confirmed, we traced his address in the neighbouring district of Tinsukia. We arrested him on the evening of 12 July."Ms Agarwal says the police have "seized his laptop, mobile phones and hard drives and his bank documents since he had monetised the account"."The account had 3,000 subscriptions on linktree and we believe he had earned 1m rupees from it. We believe he made 300,000 rupees in just five days before his arrest," she added. Ms Agarwal says Sanchi is "extremely distraught - but now she and her family are receiving counselling and they are doing better".There really is no way to prevent something like this from happening, "but had we acted earlier, we could have prevented it from gaining so much traction", Ms Agarwal said."But Sanchi had no idea because she has no social media presence. Her family too had been blocked out from this account. They became aware only once it went viral," she has not responded to the BBC queries on the case, but it generally does not allow posting of nudity or sexual content. And last month, CBS reported that it removed a number of ads promoting AI tools used to create sexually explicit deepfakes using images of real people. The Instagram account of Babydoll Archi, which had 282 posts, is no longer available to public - although social media is replete with her photos and videos and one Instagram account seems to have all of them. The BBC has asked Meta what they are planning to do about Bal, AI expert and lawyer, says what happened to Sanchi "is horrible but almost impossible to prevent".She can go to the court and seek the right to be forgotten, and a court can order the press reports that named her to be taken down but it's hard to scrub all the trace from the happened to Sanchi, she says, is what's always been happening to women, where their photos and videos are circulated as revenge."It's now a lot easier to do because of AI, but such incidents are still not as common as we expect - or they could be under-reported because of stigma or people being targeted may not even know about it as in the present case," Ms Bal says. And people watching it had no incentive to report it to the social media platform or cybercrime portal, she their complaint against Mr Bora, police have invoked sections of law that deal with sexual harassment, distribution of obscene material, defamation, forgery to harm reputation, cheating by personification and cybercrime. If found guilty, Mr Bora could get up to 10 years in case which has also led to outrage on social media in recent days has seen some seeking tougher laws to deal with such Bal believes there are enough laws to take care of such cases, but whether there's scope for new laws to deal with generative AI companies has to be looked at."But we also have to remember that deepfakes are not necessarily bad and laws have to be carefully crafted because they can be weaponised to chill free speech."Follow BBC News India on Instagram, YouTube, X and Facebook
Time of India
13-07-2025
- Time of India
Tinsukia techie held for creating, circulating morphed pics using AI
Dibrugarh: Dibrugarh police have arrested a mechanical engineer from Tinsukia for creating and circulating morphed explicit images of a woman using artificial intelligence tools. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The case has sparked widespread outrage across Assam. The accused, identified as Pratim Bora, used advanced AI platforms to superimpose his former classmate's face onto pornographic content, falsely portraying her as being involved in the adult entertainment industry. The malicious campaign triggered outrage across Assam, with social media users condemning the act. Police investigations confirmed that the content was fabricated and intended solely to tarnish the woman's reputation following a personal fallout. The arrest was made on Saturday night following a formal complaint filed by the victim's brother. Dibrugarh SSP in-charge Sizal Agarwal, while briefing the media on Sunday, revealed that the cybercrime unit's swift investigation led to Bora's arrest. "The accused Pratim Bora used the image of the victim to generate several obscene content and pornographic materials using AI softwares. It was made to appear as if the victim had joined the porn industry which turned out to be completely false during investigations," Agarwal said. The investigation revealed that Bora had utilised sophisticated AI-powered image generation platforms to produce the doctored images. He also created multiple fake social media profiles and Gmail accounts to upload and disseminate the content across various platforms. What began as harassment escalated into a profit-driven scheme when Bora discovered he could monetise the fabricated content through subscription-based adult platforms. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now "Initially he was only trying to harass her but when he started to earn money through subscription based adult content using her morphed content he became greedy and began to continue it," Agarwal said. During interrogation police said they had discovered that Bora had earned around Rs 10 lakh through the morphed content. The campaign also falsely claimed she was residing in the US and involved in adult media. During the arrest, police seized substantial digital evidence from the accused, including two mobile phones, one hard disk, one laptop, one tablet, one pen drive, one card reader, several SIM cards, and multiple credit and debit cards. The case has been registered at Dibrugarh Police Station under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), including sections 336(4), 356(2), 74, 75, 294, and 351(2). These provisions cover a comprehensive range of offences including cyber harassment, defamation, obscenity, and invasion of privacy. Bora was produced before the district and sessions court of Dibrugarh which sent him to five-day police custody.
New Indian Express
13-07-2025
- New Indian Express
Assam man held for uploading morphed and AI-generated images, videos of influencer
GUWAHATI: Assam Police arrested a man for allegedly creating a fake social media account of an influencer, Archita Phukan, and uploading her morphed and Artificial Intelligence-generated images and videos to defame and harass her. The accused, Pratim Bora, was arrested from upper Assam's Dibrugarh on Saturday evening based on a complaint. He and the victim know each other, the police said. 'We received a complaint that the photos and the videos circulating on social media are morphed and AI-generated. The complainant had shared the link of an Instagram page. We traced its credentials and found a phone number. We learnt that it is the phone number of the arrested accused and he was using it.' Dibrugarh Superintendent of Police Sizal Agarwal told the media. During the course of investigation, the victim had told the police she and the accused studied together at a college. The accused was subsequently arrested. According to the SP, the accused had created a web page where he uploaded AI-generated pornographic content. Access was subscription-based and through this mode, he made around Rs 10 lakh. 'He did it mostly for personal reasons to cause harassment to the victim,' the SP said, adding, 'As this was widely circulated and covered, her mental state is not good. She will require counselling. We are doing the needful.'
NDTV
13-07-2025
- NDTV
Man Arrested For Posting AI-Generated Pornographic Videos Of Assam Woman Online
A man has been arrested in Assam's Tinsukia district for allegedly morphing photographs and creating AI-generated pornographic videos of a woman and circulating those on social media and also profiting from it, the police said on Sunday. The victim filed a complaint on Saturday stating that morphed images and videos were being used to defame her, said Dibrugarh Senior Superintendent of Police (in-charge) Sizal Agarwal. The matter came to notice after the victim's purported image with an adult film actor surfaced, with claims that the Assam woman has joined the adult film industry in the US. "The arrested accused, Pratim Bora, has used one image of the victim to generate several obscene content and pornographic material using various AI softwares. The victim and the accused have a past acquaintance, and due to some personal reasons, he resorted to doing this sort of crime. AI technology was put to full use and it was made to appear as if the victim had joined the pron industry, which turned out to be fake," said officer Agarwal. The accused, a mechanical engineer, was arrested from Tinsukia on Saturday night, the police officer said. During investigation, all the photos and videos circulated on social media were found to be "purely generated using AI software", said the officer. The officer said that the crime, which initially started as a harassment tactic, continued when the accused began monetising it by way of a subscription he was providing for the social media page which had AI-generated pornographic images of the victim. "We have seized several electronic items, including two mobile phones, one hard disk, one laptop, one tablet, one pendrive, several simcards and because the accused also made this as a way of financial gain. He used to earn money from the subscription he was providing for this page which had AI generated pornographic content of the victim uploaded. So we have also seized his financial documents, including several credit and debit cards," said the officer. When the officer was asked about the money that the accused made using fake images, she said he earned Rs 10 lakh. "At this point, we have not found trace of anybody else involved but as the investigation progresses, there might be a possibility of other names coming up," said the officer when questioned about the involvement of others in the case. The officer also urged people to be careful while accessing online content and have a closer look before circulating any information they receive on social media. "Initially, people might not have known that these images are morphed and AI-generated. Now that we have clarified, people should refrain from circulating or using these images and targeting the victim," the officer said.
Time of India
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
'Babydoll Archi' mystery solved: Who is Pratim Bora? Man behind viral AI hoax arrested for targeting his ex-partner, Archita Phukan
As the mystery around Archita Phukan, a.k.a. 'Babydoll Archi,' an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated creation, grew, a man was arrested in Assam's Dibrugarh on Saturday evening, July 12, for creating a fake social media profile of influencer Archita Phukan and posting her morphed pictures, the police stated on Sunday, reports HT. The accused has been identified as Pratim Bora, who is a former partner of Phukan. According to the police, Bora allegedly uploaded the objectionable content to defame and harass the woman. Archita Phukan, a.k.a. 'Babydoll Archi,' gained massive attention with the 'Dame Un Grrr' reel on her Instagram page named under her. Following this, another picture was posted on the profile featuring 'Babydoll Archi' and American adult star Kendra Lust, which almost broke the internet. However, later, there were claims made by an Instagram page called 'Just Assam Things' that stated Phukan is not a real person; it is an AI creation. Since then, eyebrows have been raised on the Instagram handle. Who is Pratim Bora, Archi Phukan's ex-partner? Pratim Bora is a resident of Tinsukia who has been arrested for operating the fake profile of Archi Phukan for several weeks. The accused was arrested in his hometown following a complaint lodged by Phukan's brother, as per the police officials. The report further revealed that Phukan, who is famously known as 'Babydoll Archi,' said that her morphed images with US adult film star Kendra Lust were shared from the fake account. Moreover, she is just an Assam-based girl whose friends and acquaintances came across the morphed photos after the images had already gone viral on social media. Pratim Bora, arrested from Tinsukia, admits to sourcing images. Archi Phukan After the complaint was registered, police started their investigation, but by then Bora had gone into hiding. However, they located him anyhow by tracing his phone. "We tracked the accused using IP address data and technical evidence. He was arrested in a rented apartment in Tinsukia. His phone and laptop have been seized and sent for forensic examination,' a cybercrime officer noted. As per the officials, Bora admitted to sourcing the images from her old social media posts and using them to edit. They also stated that during the interrogation, the accused said that he created the fake account out of anger and emotional frustration following the end of his relationship with the woman. An FIR was registered under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
