Hyderabad: With cyber fraudsters increasingly using AI-generated videos of politicians and celebrities to lure investors, Hyderabad cybercrime police have summoned Meta and sought a detailed explanation on the safeguards in place across Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram to detect and prevent such scams.A representative of Meta on Tuesday appeared before cybercrime police following multiple complaints from victims who allegedly lost money after being misled by fake videos, including those depicting Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman promoting fraudulent investment schemes.“Citing examples of such investment fraud cases where people had lost crores of rupees collectively, we issued a notice to Meta recently and their representative N Shashank met us. We showed him multiple examples of cyber fraud cases where fake ads or posts put up by fraudsters have caused monetary loss to victims. We asked the Meta representative to come for a meeting with their technical executives to explain about checks and measures they have in place to prevent such frauds,” said a senior police officer.Police said several victims in recent months reported coming across fake videos of celebrities such as Amitabh Bachchan and political leaders including Sitharaman and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi on Facebook and WhatsApp, endorsing dubious investment platforms.The issue gained prominence after Owaisi himself lodged a complaint with Hyderabad police in June, alleging that unknown persons had used artificial intelligence (AI) tools to create deceptive content in his name and circulate it on Facebook and WhatsApp, falsely portraying him as promoting an investment scheme and exposing the public to financial fraud.In another case, a 76-year-old doctor from Meerpet approached Hyderabad cybercrime police on July 6, claiming he had lost Rs 86 lakh after investing through a fraudulent website that later became inaccessible. The doctor alleged that he was drawn to the platform after clicking on a Facebook advertisement carrying a fake video featuring Sitharaman. In both cases, police registered offences under relevant provisions of the BNS and IT Act.Police said the focus of the discussions is to understand the company’s existing content monitoring mechanisms and explore measures to curb the misuse of social media platforms for financial scams.Meanwhile, Hyderabad police have also asked representatives of Google India to attend a similar meeting this week over fraudulent investment applications allegedly hosted on the Play Store.Hyderabad and Cyberabad cybercrime police have, since June 30, named the Google India head and Google’s nodal officer as co-accused in four cyber fraud cases linked to alleged investment scams.
