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NOPE
High reported severity

Bengaluru woman reportedly lost Rs 3.75 crore after a Sadhguru deepfake investment pitch

Bengaluru police said a retired woman lost about Rs 3.75 crore after encountering a purported AI-generated video of Sadhguru promoting investments. The Indian Express reports that the contact and transfers took place from 25 February to 23 April 2025. According to the reported FIR, the video led to a trading platform and subsequent contact with scammers, who showed apparent profits. The woman realised the problem when withdrawal attempts prompted further payment demands. Police were attempting to freeze accounts, while warning recovery would be difficult.

AI system
Unidentified video tool
Unknown
Occurred
25 Feb 2025 to 23 Apr 2025
Reported
11 September 2025
Event location
India
What the AI did
Communicated with the person
Reported harm
Financial Loss
Whose AI use
Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Finance
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account
3 claims: 3 reported. 2 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 1 person

AI system as recorded: Reported AI-generated video impersonating Sadhguru

What Happened

Bengaluru police said a retired woman lost about Rs 3.75 crore after encountering a purported AI-generated video of Sadhguru promoting investments. The Indian Express reports that the contact and transfers took place from 25 February to 23 April 2025. According to the reported FIR, the video led to a trading platform and subsequent contact with scammers, who showed apparent profits. The woman realised the problem when withdrawal attempts prompted further payment demands. Police were attempting to freeze accounts, while warning recovery would be difficult.

Reported harm

According to the woman's complaint and police reporting, she transferred about Rs 3.75 crore to the purported investment scheme and could not withdraw her funds.

What remains unknown

  • The video-generation tool, perpetrators and amount eventually recovered are unknown.
  • The police and FIR accounts were inspected through journalism, without the original FIR or a technical examination of the video.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The reported police complaint links this woman's investment contact to an AI-generated Sadhguru video. The actual video and forensic record were not inspected.

3 claims: 3 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported The police account says the woman encountered an AI-generated deepfake of Sadhguru promoting a fake investment opportunity.

Causal attribution. The articles relay the same complaint and police investigation. They are kept in one independence group. The AI link and loss remain reported and causation is alleged.

Reported The reported complaint says she transferred about Rs 3.75 crore and realised she had been cheated when she attempted to withdraw the funds.

Causal attribution. The articles relay the same complaint and police investigation. They are kept in one independence group. The AI link and loss remain reported and causation is alleged.

Reported The Indian Express dates the reported contact and transfers from 25 February to 23 April 2025.

Causal attribution. The articles relay the same complaint and police investigation. They are kept in one independence group. The AI link and loss remain reported and causation is alleged.

Sources

2 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Event countries: India. Affected-person countries: India. Court countries: Unknown.

Both articles identify the woman as a Bengaluru resident and the complaint as filed there. No court country is inferred from an unrelated identity-rights proceeding.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-30: Inspected reports describe a dated, concrete investment loss and a case-specific purported AI video. Both reports share the complainant and police chain. The affected woman is unnamed and the reported amount is not upgraded to a judicial finding.

People reported harmed in this case

At least 1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One woman is identified as the complainant. Group members, relatives and the impersonated public figure are not counted.

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

Cite this case

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

APA

NOPE. (2026). Bengaluru woman reportedly lost Rs 3.75 crore after a Sadhguru deepfake investment pitch. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-bengaluru-reported-sadhguru-deepfake-investment-loss

BibTeX

@misc{2025_bengaluru_reported_sadhguru_deepfake_investment_loss,
  title = {Bengaluru woman reportedly lost Rs 3.75 crore after a Sadhguru deepfake investment pitch},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-bengaluru-reported-sadhguru-deepfake-investment-loss}
}

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