A purported newspaper clipping claiming that a woman was caught for a 45-year-old jewellery theft in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, after the shopkeeper recognised her, based on the viral AI retro photo trend is being shared online.
Ujjain Police told BOOM that no such incident has taken place in the city. Further, the images showing a woman in the 80s and present time are AI-generated.
The Claim:
Several news outlets, including Hindustan Times, News18 Telugu and Zee Telugu, reported the viral fictitious event as a real incident. Hindustan Times reported that a woman accused of stealing a gold necklace around 45 years ago was identified after the jewellery shop owner recognised her from an AI-generated retro photograph.
The viral story claims that a woman stole a gold necklace from a jewellery shop in Ujjain around 45 years ago and was never traced.
What We Found
1) Ujjain Police deny viral story
BOOM reached out to Ujjain Superintendent of Police Pradeep Sharma who denied that a woman had recently been identified and questioned in connection to a 45-year-old jewellery theft case after posting an AI-generated photograph of the 80s trend.
2) Earliest post traced to page that shares AI-generated content
We traced the earliest version of the viral images to a September 14, 2026 post by a Facebook page named Neha Upadhaya. The post has since been deleted. The image appears to be a newspaper clipping.
A review of the account's timeline showed that it regularly posts AI-generated images and content. We also found that the page’s profile picture was AI-generated.
3) Viral images are AI-generated
We also analysed the images and the newspaper clipping using AI-detection tools. WasItAI indicated that there was evidence that the image, or parts of it, had been created using AI. A second check detected an OpenAI SynthID watermark in the image, indicating that it had been generated using OpenAI tools.