Chennai: The Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) of Tamil Nadu has registered a case and launched an investigation into the circulation of AI-generated deepfake videos that impersonate Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay to solicit money from the public under the guise of financial assistance. The crime branch has noted that several of these videos appear to have been shared from Facebook accounts purportedly based in Pakistan.
According to a statement issued by the cyber-crime team of the CB-CID, it detected the videos during routine cyber patrolling on Facebook and other social media platforms. The clips, with audio in Hindi, show a person resembling the chief minister offering help to people in need and asking them to contact a specific WhatsApp number.
A special report was submitted on Tuesday regarding these videos, based on which a case was registered in the Cyber Crime Cell of CBCID and investigation taken up. Authorities have written to Meta, the tech form that owns Facebook, seeking details of the fake IDs used to upload the content, along with related logs. A request for the removal of the videos from social media platforms has also been initiated.
A preliminary investigation into the issue says that multiple similar AI-generated deepfake videos of the chief minister promising assistance are also circulating on social media platforms other than Facebook. The probe is continuing to identify the owners of these accounts and ensure the content is taken down at the earliest.
The Tamil Nadu Police has appealed to the public not to respond to phone numbers or join WhatsApp groups mentioned in such videos. The videos are not genuine but deepfakes fabricated by scammers with the intention of cheating people. Citizens have also been urged to educate their family members and friends about this form of online fraud.
This incident comes after a wider pattern of misleading and fabricated online content involving the chief minister, particularly in Hindi, since he assumed office in May 2026 has surfaced. Alongside outright deepfake videos used for financial scams, a series of scripted Hindi-language videos and reels by various north Indian influencers have attributed false announcements to Vijay.
These videos include claims that Vijay ordered the hanging or “encounter” of rape accused irrespective of the victim’s age, religion or state of origin, that hospital bills would be waived if a patient died during private treatment, and fabricated stories linking him to actions on cow slaughter, temple donation boxes, salaries of imams at mosques, petrol prices and confrontations with the prime minister.
The government officials however, upon verification, have stated that no such official orders, government notifications or statements exist. The Chief Minister’s Office has confirmed several of these claims as completely false. The videos often use dramatic, film-style language and identical scripts repeated across multiple accounts, primarily targeting audiences in north India.
Separately, cyber fraud cases using the chief minister’s name or likeness have already been reported. Similar frauds offering loans, startup funding or assistance under the guise of a foundation linked to the chief minister have been reported. Police and official advisories continue to stress that no genuine government scheme requires citizens to pay processing fees, taxes or charges in advance via WhatsApp or unknown numbers, and that the public should verify any claim through official channels before responding.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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