India's cybercrime unit warned that deepfake videos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and state chief ministers appear in fake welfare ads tied to fees or payment requests through UPI.
Separate reports by PTI and The Times of India attributed the Oct. 19 alert to the National Cybercrime Threat Analytics Unit (NCTAU), part of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C). I4C is an attached office of India's Ministry of Home Affairs.
The reports said ads on Facebook and Instagram directed users to phone numbers, WhatsApp chats or websites to claim supposed benefits. People who responded were asked to pay taxes or registration, processing or verification fees before funds would be released. The reports said further payment demands could follow.
Other ads promised scratch-card prizes or spin-and-win rewards. To claim them, users could be asked to approve a collect request through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) or enter a UPI PIN. Approving a request sends money from the user's account. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which developed UPI, says a PIN authorizes a payment; recipients do not need one to receive funds. The reports described people making payments but did not give totals for victims or losses.
NCTAU's reported advice was to check schemes on the relevant government department's official website and examine the stated purpose and recipient of any requested payment. India's National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal lists 1930 as a helpline for online financial fraud.
An I4C advisory dated April 22, 2024, addressed sponsored investment ads using deepfake videos and images of prominent people, an earlier example of the same impersonation method. The reports on the Oct. 19 warning gave no count of the ads or people affected, and no total for money lost.
