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Almendralejo, Spain: AI-generated nude images of at least 20 schoolgirls; 15 minors placed under supervised release

In September 2023 families in Almendralejo (Badajoz, Spain) reported that artificial-intelligence 'undressing' applications had been used to create fake nude images of local girls aged 11 to 17 from their social-media photographs, and that the images circulated in WhatsApp groups. Police counted 22 victims and identified 10 suspects, all minors, within days. On 20 June 2024 the Badajoz juvenile court, in an agreed judgment, held 15 minors responsible for 20 counts of child pornography and 20 counts against moral integrity and imposed one year of supervised release with an education programme.

AI System

AI image 'undressing' applications (not named in the inspected court reporting)

Occurred

Sept 2023

Reported

18 September 2023

Event location

Spain

Platform

Unknown

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: supported. The Badajoz juvenile court's agreed judgment of 20 June 2024, as reported by El País and Infobae citing the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Extremadura, records as proven fact that the minors used artificial-intelligence applications to superimpose the girls' faces on other bodies. The application is not named in the inspected court reporting.

AI-to-person relation

  • Depicted or impersonated the person

Core relations are communication, acting on someone’s behalf, and depiction or impersonation. Decision and claim relations are retained as contextual cases.

Someone else’s AI use. Settings: Education, Privacy, Justice.

Claim status: Corroborated

In September 2023 artificial-intelligence image-manipulation applications were used to create fake nude images of secondary-school girls in Almendralejo from photographs taken from their WhatsApp and Instagram profiles, and the images circulated in WhatsApp groups.

Causal attribution: The juvenile court's agreed judgment records the use of AI applications as proven fact (El País and Infobae, 9 July 2024, citing the TSJEx).

  • News report (supports): Paragraphs 2-4: images created from clothed photos taken from the girls' own social media accounts and processed by an application that generates an imagined nude image.
  • News report (supports): Opening paragraphs: pupils reported fake nude photos made 'a través de una aplicación de inteligencia artificial' circulating on phones at the start of the school year.
  • News report (supports): Paragraph 2: images arose from a WhatsApp group linked to several Almendralejo schools; profile photos from WhatsApp and Instagram were used.
  • News report court outcome (supports): Paragraph 3: the judgment's proven facts describe AI applications superimposing the girls' faces, taken from WhatsApp and Instagram profiles, on other nude bodies, and circulation through two WhatsApp groups.

Claim status: Reported

At least 20 girls aged 11 to 17 were affected; police had counted 22 victims and identified 10 suspected authors, all minors, by 21 September 2023.

Causal attribution: Counts are the police and court figures as reported; the BBC also reports a parents' group of 28, which is not used as a harm count.

  • News report (supports): Paragraph 4: 'more than 20 girls, aged between 11 and 17, have come forward as victims'.
  • News report (supports): Opening paragraph: 'Ya son 22 menores las víctimas'; 10 presuntos autores identificados, todos menores.
  • News report court outcome (supports): Paragraph 1: 'al menos 20 niñas residentes en Almendralejo'.

Claim status: Reported

On 20 June 2024 the Badajoz juvenile court, in an agreed judgment, held 15 minors responsible for 20 counts of child pornography and 20 counts against moral integrity and imposed one year of supervised release (libertad vigilada) with affective-sexual education, responsible-technology and gender-equality content.

Causal attribution: Court outcome as reported from the TSJEx; the judgment text itself was not inspected.

  • News report court outcome (supports): Paragraphs 1 and 3: sentence of 20 June 2024 in conformity; 15 minors; 20 delitos de pornografía infantil y otros tantos contra la integridad moral; libertad vigilada durante un año.
  • News agency report court outcome (supports): Paragraphs 1-2: Juzgado de Menores de Badajoz; quince menores; veinte delitos de pornografía infantil y otros tantos contra la integridad moral; un año de libertad vigilada with the described programme.
  • News agency report (context): Paragraph 1: 'a juvenile court this summer sentenced 15 of their classmates to a year of probation'.

Claim status: Reported

Mothers reported that girls were blackmailed with the fake images, and police investigated an attempt to extort one of the girls.

Causal attribution: Reported by the families to police and the press; no charge for extortion is recorded in the inspected judgment reporting.

  • News report (supports): Paragraph 7: 'Investigators are also looking into the claim that an attempt was made to extort one of the girls by using a fake image of her.'
  • News report (supports): Paragraph 5: 'según han denunciado varias madres, chantajearon a sus hijas con dinero para no distribuir sus fotografías manipuladas'.

Claim status: Reported

One mother said some affected girls would not leave their homes after the images circulated, while her own daughter was bearing up well.

Causal attribution: A parent's account reported by the BBC; not independently confirmed.

  • News report (supports): Passage beginning 'The impact the images’ circulation has had on the girls affected varies': the interviewed mother says her daughter is bearing up well, while some other girls would not leave home.

What remains unknown

  • The application or applications used are not named in the inspected court reporting; an earlier version of this record named one app on the basis of press reports not re-inspected today.
  • When each image was created is not established; the BBC reports that many were believed to have been created over the summer of 2023.
  • Whether any image reached pornographic websites, which the families feared, is not established.
  • The individual consequences for the affected girls beyond the reports cited are not documented.
  • The judgment text was not inspected; its contents are taken from El País and Infobae reporting the TSJEx.
Source reading, translation and location

News report · en · Source inspected

Read in English on 2026-09-15; datePublished 2023-09-23.

News report · es · Source inspected

Model read the Spanish original retained on 2026-09-15; no independent bilingual human review.

This source shares an underlying account with another listed source.

News report · es · Source inspected

Model read the Spanish original retained on 2026-09-15; no independent bilingual human review.

This source shares an underlying account with another listed source.

News report court outcome · es · Source inspected

Model read the Spanish original retained on 2026-09-15; no independent bilingual human review. Court outcome is reported from TSJEx; the judgment itself was not inspected.

This source shares an underlying account with another listed source.

News agency report court outcome · es · Source inspected

Model read the Spanish original retained on 2026-09-15; no independent bilingual human review. Court outcome is reported from TSJEx; the judgment itself was not inspected. Infobae credits EFE for this article.

This source shares an underlying account with another listed source.

News report · es · Source inspected

Model read the Spanish original retained on 2026-09-15; no independent bilingual human review.

News agency report · en · Source inspected

Associated Press report carried by Fortune; read in English on 2026-09-15.

Incident database aggregator · en · Source inspected

Aggregator entry listing press reports; used as context only.

Event countries: Spain. Affected-person countries: Spain. Court countries: Spain.

Event: the images were made and circulated among pupils of secondary schools in Almendralejo, Badajoz, Spain (BBC; El País 18 and 21 September 2023). Affected persons: girls attending those schools (El País 21 September 2023). Court: Juzgado de Menores de Badajoz (El País and Infobae, 9 July 2024).

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-15: Restored under its original ID after source, duplicate and sensitivity review under the 2026-09-15 charter. Eight sources read, seven in full; no victim or suspect is named; the app named in the earlier record is omitted because the inspected court reporting does not name it.

What Happened

At the start of the 2023-24 school year, pupils at four of Almendralejo's five secondary schools found that fake nude images of female classmates were circulating on their phones. The images had been produced by running photographs from the girls' WhatsApp and Instagram profiles through an artificial-intelligence application that generates an imagined nude body, and were shared in WhatsApp groups. A group of mothers, one of whom was a doctor with a public profile, took the case to the police and to the press; police counted 22 victims aged 11 to 17 and identified ten suspects, all minors, within days. Families reported blackmail attempts using the images. On 20 June 2024 the Badajoz juvenile court held 15 minors responsible for 20 counts of child pornography and 20 counts against moral integrity in an agreed judgment and imposed one year of supervised release with an education programme. The application was not named in the inspected court reporting.

Reported harm

At least 20 girls aged 11 to 17 had AI-manipulated nude images of them created from their social-media photographs and shared in WhatsApp groups; families reported blackmail attempts and one mother said some girls would not leave their homes.

Exploitation or AbusePsychological Distress

Outcome

Resolved

Juzgado de Menores de Badajoz, agreed judgment of 20 June 2024 (reported 9 July 2024 by El País and Infobae citing the TSJEx): 15 minors held responsible for 20 counts of child pornography and 20 counts against moral integrity; one year of supervised release with affective-sexual education, responsible use of information technology and gender-equality content. The Agencia Española de Protección de Datos opened an ex officio investigation in September 2023 (El País, 21 September 2023).

Sources

BBC News, 23 September 2023: 'AI-generated naked child images shock Spanish town of Almendralejo'(opens in new tab)

23 September 2023

Primary

El País, 18 September 2023: first report of the fake nude images circulating among pupils (Spanish)(opens in new tab)

18 September 2023

El País, 21 September 2023: 22 victims and 10 suspected authors identified (Spanish)(opens in new tab)

21 September 2023

El País, 9 July 2024: one year of supervised release for 15 minors, reporting the TSJEx (Spanish)(opens in new tab)

9 July 2024

Infobae, 9 July 2024: juvenile court outcome and education programme (Spanish)(opens in new tab)

9 July 2024

Infobae, 18 September 2023: mothers' complaints, WhatsApp origin and reported blackmail (Spanish)(opens in new tab)

18 September 2023

Associated Press via Fortune, 16 August 2024: sentence of 15 classmates to a year of probation; app still accessible(opens in new tab)

16 August 2024

AI Incident Database, incident 610 (aggregator; context)(opens in new tab)

18 September 2023

People described

Girls aged 11 to 17 attending secondary schools in Almendralejo, Badajoz

People reported harmed in this case

At least 20 people

0 AI participants · 20 other people harmed

The juvenile court's agreed judgment, as reported by El País and Infobae from the TSJEx, refers to at least 20 girls; police had counted 22 victims by 21 September 2023 (El País). The court figure is used as the documented minimum. The 15 minors held responsible are not counted as harmed persons.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#deepfakes#minors#spain#school#non-consensual-imagery#juvenile-court

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2023). Almendralejo, Spain: AI-generated nude images of at least 20 schoolgirls; 15 minors placed under supervised release. NOPE: AI and people. https://nope.net/incidents/2023-spain-almendralejo-deepfake-minors

BibTeX

@misc{2023_spain_almendralejo_deepfake_minors,
  title = {Almendralejo, Spain: AI-generated nude images of at least 20 schoolgirls; 15 minors placed under supervised release},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2023},
  howpublished = {NOPE: AI and people},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2023-spain-almendralejo-deepfake-minors}
}

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