New Delhi: As many as 50 phones, 12 laptops, multiple deleted accounts, call records, a deleted email address and many other bits of leads were scoured through by the Delhi Police before it cracked the deepfake video of popular actor Rashmika Mandanna.
Soon after the actor’s deepfake video had gone online in November, Instagram suo motu took cognisance and removed several of the uploads and shares. This acted as a big hurdle for the Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit since the records of these accounts were all the more difficult to obtain.
It took the police over two months to nab the perpetrator — Andhra Pradesh-based engineer Eemani Naveen — who allegedly made the video to increase the followers on a fanpage that he had created for Mandanna in Instagram. The followers on the fan page increased from 90,000 to 1,08,000 within two weeks of the first upload, the police said.
A team under Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Manoj Kumar comprising inspector Hansraj Swami and sub inspector Kapil Yaduvanshi worked on this high-profile case that brought the country’s notice to the dangers posed by the new age platform that alters and manipulates videos seamlessly.
In the ensuing two months, the National Cyber Forensics Lab in Delhi along with IFSO began a probe by reverse analysing the video sharers. The investigation relied heavily on digital forensics — videos and phones analysed under the watch of ACP Vijay Gehlawat and worked closely with Meta.
Soon after the case was cracked, the actor Saturday thanked DCP, IFSO, Hemant Tiwari for the arrest.
Expressing my heartfelt gratitude to @DCP_IFSO 🙏🏼 Thank you for apprehending those responsible.
Feeling truly grateful for the community that embraces me with love, support and shields me. 🇮🇳
Girls and boys – if your image is used or morphed anywhere without your consent. It…
— Rashmika Mandanna (@iamRashmika) January 20, 2024
“Since Instagram had deleted multiple accounts, it was a task to find the ones who shared it initially on the platform. Moreover, a lot of the people who had uploaded the video on other accounts and handles as well had deleted them after the case made news,” a source in the Delhi Police said.
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Deleted records, no recollection
Around 500 social media handles were screened by the investigating team and then around 20 people were questioned. Meta, which owns and operates Instagram, helped the police with the profile details of its users who had uploaded and shared the video.
However, according to the sources, during the course of the investigation, most of them couldn’t remember or recollect where they saw the video initially and downloaded it from. That was when experts of digital forensics stepped in.
“40-50 phones and 10-12 laptops were sent for forensic analysis. However, tracing deleted records becomes very difficult. We had reached out to Meta for profile details such as handle names and then traced the IP addresses,” another source said.
Until two days before the arrest as well, the investigating team wasn’t sure if Naveen was the original creator of the video.
“He had deleted the fan page and the video and also deleted the email address that was used to create the deepfake video. It was made on an open source application,” the second source said. “In some cases, a different (mobile) number is given to create an email address and hence we had to be doubly sure. The reverse tracing through forensic analysis of the records of the phones and laptops had pointed towards the accused.”
After the police verified the deleted email address to Naveen, a team went to Andhra Pradesh and questioned the B.Tech graduate following which he was arrested Saturday.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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