Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Policehas arrested a man behind the deepfake video of a popular actress, police said on Saturday.

The IFSO has arrested the person who created the video and has posted the same on social media, a police official said.

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The accused was arrested from Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district who has been identified as Emani Naveen, a 24 year old B.Tech graduate.

He worked as a freelance social media influencer and was also a fan of the actress and is said to have created the video in a bid to increase the followers on the fan page run by him, further to earn money online.

It has also been alleged that he had also created two more fan pages of two more noted celebrities from the southern region.

He was maintaining three pages and uploading clean content, but on October 13, he allegedly created the video of the actress and uploaded the same on social media in a bid to increase the number of followers on the page run by him and to gain monetary benefits.

During further analysis on the ongoing probe, the police found that the original video which was morphed to make a deepfake of the actress was of a British Indian girl which was uploaded on October 9, 2023.

It was during interrogation the accused revealed that he was scared when the video went viral and several actors took to social media against the video.

Following all the outrage and people hitting out at the video, he changed the name of the Instagram handle and also delete the data from his digital devices.

The police traced the accused with enhanced technical surveillance and scanned about 500 social media accounts related to the deepfake video.

The IFSO also interrogated a lot of social media account holders in this regard, before finally tracing the accused on Instagram.

The accused created the video using techniques learned by him through online tutorials and courses he did online with regard to video editing and digital media.

So far, the police have not found any other motive behind him making the deepfake video other than increasing the followers, while other angles into the case are also being verified.

The FIR in this matter was registered on November 10, under Indian Penal Code sections 465 (punishment for forgery) and 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation) and sections 66C and 66E of the Information Technology Act with the IFSO unit of Special Cell.

The step was taken after Delhi Commission of Women raised the issue with the police after taking suo-moto cognizance on media reports of a deepfake video of an Indian actress Rashmika Mandanna, which went viral onl social media platforms.