A network of Facebook pages and profiles are running a fraud operation on the social media platform through fake ads and the use of AI voice clones of celebrities.
BOOM found at least four Facebook pages and one profile using the name Suraj Sharma - likely a fake alias, perpetrating the scam.
We also found multiple fake ads that have used AI-generated voices of Sadhguru and Shah Rukh Khan among others. These ads are being promoted on the platform.
The con involves luring unsuspecting people into investing small sums of money with the promise of multiplying their returns overnight.
To do this they first have to join one of the many private Telegram channels that are part of this shady network. The Telegram channels have more fake screenshots and videos of “investors” who have doubled or tripled their investments. We counted at least five Telegram channels which are a part of the scam.
It is not immediately clear who is behind the scam.
BOOM found the Facebook pages ‘Suraj Sharma - MAX Income’, ‘Suraj Sharma - Indian Mentor’, ‘Suraj Sharma’, 'Suraj Sharma' and one profile named ‘Suraj Sharma - Mentor’, involved in the scam.
We reached out to Sadhguru’s Isha Foundation for a comment. The organisation directed us to a public notice it issued on October 5, 2023 calling out these scams and asking people to be vigilant.
"It has come to our notice that financial scams in the name of Suraj sharma, Laila Rao and Amir are circulating on social media platforms like facebook, instagram and telegram and that these are using Sadhguru's videos and images and also cloning his voice," the statement said.
"We have reported this to the respective social media platforms stating that Sadhguru is not involved in this and they are fake and fraudulent and also we have filed cyber complaints against these with the police," it added.
One such fake ad can be seen below.
Who Is Suraj Sharma?
Suraj Sharma is likely to be a fake persona. The Facebook pages and profile we came across have misused photos of Arslan Aslam - a Dubai based social media influencer, musician and singer.
Aslam’s photos have been passed off to create a fictitious person named Suraj Sharma - a strapping young investment manager living the good life in Dubai.
However, all of it is fake.
The modus operandi appears to seem somewhat similar to the Laila Rao scam that BOOM’s Decode wrote about earlier.
Fake Ads All Over Facebook
Through Facebook’s Ad Library we found the network promoting fake ads on the platform.
The ads are a cocktail of unrelated news clips, fake text graphics, fake voice-overs including AI-generated voice clones of Sadhguru.
The synthetic voice which sounds eerily similar to that of Sadhguru’s claims to give a ringing endorsement to one Suraj Sharma and urges people to invest in his scheme through the latter’s private Telegram channel.
BOOM reached out to AI Voice Detector, a website specialising in detecting AI-generated voices.
The website gave a score of over 86% probability that one of the voice samples was generated using AI.
The videos promoting the fraud have stolen clips of FirstPost anchor Palki Sharma Upadhyay and NDTV anchor Gargi Rawat. The voice-overs used in these clips for the two anchors also appear to be AI-generated.
BOOM has earlier debunked a similar crypto scam that created fake videos using unrelated visuals of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy and a fake voice-over.
AI-generated content particularly deepfakes, which include synthetic images, videos and audio, are increasingly being used for nefarious purposes and turning out to be a headache for fact-checkers and law enforcement agencies.
India's Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology and Communications, Ashwini Vaishnaw described deepfakes as an emerging threat to democracy. The Indian government is set to introduce draft regulations, which will be open to public consultation, within the next 10 days.
This story has been updated to include a response from Isha Foundation.
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