Description: A 79-year-old woman ("Archana") in Bengaluru was reportedly defrauded of ₹35 lakh (~$40,000) in a purportedly AI-enabled investment scam that used deepfake videos of Infosys co-founder N. R. Narayana Murthy to promote a fake trading platform. The scammers allegedly built a convincing website and pressured the victim over eight months to make escalating payments. They allegedly later attempted extortion by threatening her with a fake money-laundering case before police became involved.
Editor Notes: Timeline note: This scam reportedly took place over an eight-month period leading up to June 2025, during which the victim was alleged to have been repeatedly contacted and defrauded. Because the Times of India article documenting the incident was published on 06/27/2025, that date is used for the incident ID. It was added to the AI Incident Database on 10/19/2025.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown voice cloning technology and Unknown deepfake technology developed an AI system deployed by Unknown scammers impersonating N. R. Narayana Murthy , Unknown scammers and Unknown fraudsters, which harmed N. R. Narayana Murthy , Investors , General public of India , General public , Elderly investors , Elderly individuals and Archana.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Unknown voice cloning technology , Unknown deepfake technology , WhatsApp , Social media , Fake trading platform and Facebook
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1240
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2025-06-27
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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BENGALURU: A 79-year-old woman from Seshadripuram, central Bengaluru, lost nearly Rs 35 lakh to fraudsters operating a sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) trading scam. The gang not only cheated her of her savings over eight months b…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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