4 Aug 2026United StatesGrok Imagine (reported)
Rebecca Cooke, the Democratic challenger in Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District, says Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden has repeatedly posted AI-generated videos to his X account that put words in her mouth. A cease-and-desist letter sent on her campaign's behalf on 30 September 2026 by Elias Law Group cites a video posted on 4 August 2026 that purports to show her speaking on the campaign trail in Eau Claire with former President Biden seated behind her and saying she seeks 'to take advantage of as much corruption as possible and give every illegal alien free healthcare'. The letter calls the video 'pure fiction', says she never made the statements, alleges the videos are posted to harm her reputation, and warns that her lawyers will evaluate all legal options. Wisconsin Public Radio reports that the videos posted to X carry an automatic label indicating they were made with Grok Imagine, and quotes two other AI-generated lines attributed to her. Van Orden's campaign accused Cooke of lying to voters about her record, and he answered the letter with another AI video of a duck saying 'Cease and desist!'. On 22 October 2026, WEAU reported that an ethics complaint had been filed with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission against Van Orden over his posting of another graphic of Cooke that, according to her campaign's press release, is AI-generated and was posted without disclosure; WEAU says the complaint was filed by an Eau Claire citizen. Van Orden's campaign called it a cheap publicity stunt filed three months too late. On 23 October 2026 Van Orden said the graphic used a real photograph of Cooke taken during a May 2026 interview with La Crosse News 8 Now, and his campaign supplied a frame from that footage; the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the campaign said it used a screenshot and no AI generation, and that Van Orden had earlier used the same News 8 video to generate several deepfake videos he posted to X in August. Cooke's campaign said it trusted the Ethics Commission to determine the truth. No ruling and no independent examination of the graphic are reported.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 02/10/2026
Event date unknownAustraliaUnidentified image tool
ABC News (2 October 2026) reports that WA District Court Judge Belinda Lonsdale sentenced a 41-year-old man to four and a half years in prison, with eligibility for parole after two and a half years, for creating child exploitation material with AI. He had pleaded guilty to 26 charges including indecent recording and producing, creating and possessing child exploitation material, and to five charges of possessing indecent or obscene articles, and was fined $2,500 for the offensive material charges. The judge said he was guilty of incorporating images of real victims and manipulating their images using AI tools, and that the claim that AI-generated material involved no actual abuse was not mitigating because images of real children were used; ABC reports he used AI to manipulate images of children from social media. He sent sexual material through encrypted messaging apps to two co-accused and to a covert police operative, and a police raid on his Wanneroo home found a large amount of child exploitation material. The children are not identified and their number is not reported.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 02/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool
A county sheriff's report and court documents, as reported by three Tampa Bay outlets on 30 September 2026, say a woman found sexual images of herself, friends and family members on her husband's phone that had been made or altered with AI. He was arrested on 25 September 2026. The voyeurism charges he faces concern separate alleged hidden-camera recordings, not the AI images, and reports give different counts. He has pleaded not guilty and was released on bond under a no-contact order. The AI tool is not named.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/10/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified video tool
El Mirón, the verification section of Criterio.hn, reported on 30 September 2026 that it found three videos on a Facebook profile, altered in image and audio, that use the image of the plastic and reconstructive surgeon Emec Cherenfant to offer a remedy for prostatitis and related problems. In the videos his artificial image says he helped former footballers beat prostatitis without surgery and invites viewers to write to him on WhatsApp. El Mirón says the manipulation is evident from the vocabulary, voice and body movements and that the detector ZeroGPT flagged the videos as AI-made. The hospital where he offers his services told El Mirón the advertising is deceptive. Cherenfant said he has nothing to do with prostate treatment, that scammers repeatedly use his name and image, and that he filed a complaint with the Ministerio Público two years ago. 'Son estafadores. No se dejen engañar, es pura inteligencia artificial', he said. No buyer losses are reported.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 01/10/2026
Nov 2025Event location unknownUnidentified image and video tool
Narinder Kaur, a 54-year-old broadcaster and regular TV commentator, told the Daily Mail (30 September 2026) that one morning in November 2025 she opened X and found sexually explicit images of herself, made by taking photographs she had shared on Instagram and removing her clothing with a so-called nudification app. Since then she has been tagged in at least 20 more deepfaked pictures and videos, some linking her to Jeffrey Epstein. She says she fell into a depression in the early weeks and her GP suggested antidepressants, that commenters treated the images as real, and that she fears her teenage children will see them. She has reported each image and had numerous police visits, but no perpetrator has been identified because the accounts are anonymous and deleted when reported. She has joined the Stop AI Abuse campaign.
Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 01/10/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified video tool
Dr. François Marquis, chief of intensive care at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital in Montreal, told CBC News (August 2025) and CTV News and CBC News (September 2026) that AI-generated deepfake videos using his likeness keep appearing on Facebook, selling joint supplements, pills and cancer cures and spreading anti-pharmaceutical claims; the latest offers $1 million to dissatisfied customers. He is not on social media and learns of the videos from people who call him. He recounts that a person who paid hundreds of dollars for pills advertised in one of the videos, and never received them, came into the ICU demanding his money back, which he describes as a security problem for the hospital. He has reported the deepfakes to Quebec's College of Physicians, Montreal police and the platforms, but says new videos keep appearing. The makers of the ads are not identified.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/10/2026
20 Jul 2026BangladeshUnidentified voice-cloning tool
According to a press release from Special Response Battalion-13 (SRB-13), relayed by Ajker Patrika, DBC News and NTV, on 20 July 2026 a man who works at the Natore Sadar upazila health complex received a call saying that his younger son had been arrested by police with drugs. The callers then used AI to imitate the son's voice so that the father believed the story, and demanded money to get the son released. He sent a total of Tk 40,000 in two payments through the mobile financial service Nagad, and realised it was a fraud when he reached his son directly. He filed a fraud case at Natore Sadar police station on 25 September 2026. That evening SRB-13 arrested two men, described as the ring's leader and an associate, at their homes in Gobindaganj, Gaibandha, seizing nine mobile phones, a passport and Tk 14,100 in cash; SRB says they admitted involvement during initial questioning and handed them to the police for further legal action, and NTV reports they were sent to Gaibandha district jail through the court on 26 September.
Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/10/2026
Event date unknownAustraliaUnidentified voice-cloning tool
Victoria Police warned, in reports published on 1 October 2026 local time, that fraudsters targeting the state's Mandarin-speaking community are using artificial intelligence to clone the voices of doctors, general practitioners and surgeons, calling victims by their real names and telling them to buy gift cards and text the codes (ABC News, Yahoo News Australia). Police received ten reports in September. In one case, NewsWire reports, the scammer copied the voice of a medical professional the victim knew, and the victim bought $50,000 in gift cards over three days before calling the real practice. In another, a caller posing as a medical professional exploited the victim's urgent health conditions and pressured them until their cash was depleted, a loss of $40,000; police do not say whether that call used a cloned voice. No victim is identified.
Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/10/2026
Sept 2026Event location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning tool
Samuel Sarmiento, a former lead singer of Banda Los Recoditos, announced his mother's death on social media in late September 2026. Hours later he posted a video on his official Instagram account warning that people were circulating fake videos using his voice, cloned with AI, in which he appeared to ask for money to cover her funeral costs. 'No se vale que haya gente tan ruin que ande pidiendo dinero con mi voz, con IA, para el sepelio de mi madre', he said, adding that he was not asking anyone for money. La Razón, Récord, La Mejor and El Diario de Sonora relayed his video on 30 September 2026. No report says whether anyone paid, and no police complaint is reported.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/10/2026
29 Jul 2026 to 1 Sept 2026BangladeshUnidentified voice-cloning tool
Khulna Gazette, the Daily Times of Bangladesh, Newsbangla24 and BD Today (all 29 September 2026) report from the first information report and Khulna Metropolitan Police Detective Branch (DB) statements that a businessman in Khulna city was joined on 29 July 2026 to a WhatsApp group call with a person introduced as National Parliament Whip Raqibul Islam Bakul, who discussed the sale of old machinery from Platinum Jute Mill and asked for advance payment. The businessman handed over Tk2 crore in cash that afternoon to men sent as representatives and a further Tk1.5 crore after inspecting the mill (30 July per Khulna Gazette and BD Today; 2 August per the Daily Times of Bangladesh and Newsbangla24), a total of Tk3.5 crore. When the businessman met the Whip in person in Khulna on 1 September, the Whip disclaimed any knowledge of it. The complaint filed on 18 September under the Cyber Security Act says the caller's voice had been changed with digital technology and artificial intelligence to pass as the Whip's; the DB deputy commissioner described the case to Asia Post as fraud by imitating the Whip's voice through AI. A press release from the Khulna city BNP media cell, sent on 4 September and published by Jaijaidin on 5 September, had already said a ring was using a US number and AI to clone the Whip's voice and demand money. Police arrested four people, recovered Tk12 lakh, and the prime accused gave a confessional statement before a magistrate on 28 September; on 29 September a court added two more detained men to the case. The voice-cloning tool is not identified and no forensic finding has been reported.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 01/10/2026
Mar 2026CanadaUnidentified image tool
The Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT) Internet Child Exploitation unit announced on 17 June 2026 that two 14-year-old boys at an Edmonton junior high school had been charged on 1 June with making and possessing child sexual exploitation materials and voyeurism. Police allege the boys took photos of girls at their school without consent and from the girls' social media accounts and used AI software to sexualise them; several students were identified as victims and police said the number could be more than ten pending forensic review. A teacher reported the matter to police in late March 2026 after students complained. Police said the evidence so far indicates the images were shared between the two boys rather than more widely, but that word of their existence spread through the school. The lead investigator said the girls were left with intense shame and embarrassment and that some are now too scared to post on social media. The software has not been identified; the school and the accused are not named to protect the victims. CBC, Global News, CTV News and The Canadian Press covered the release and news conference.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/10/2026
12 Mar 2026United StatesUnidentified image tool
WIRED (Caroline Haskins, 24 August 2026) reports the account of a substitute teacher in Los Banos, California, who spoke to WIRED by name (not repeated here). On 12 March 2026 a co-worker at his other job told him an AI photo was circulating on social media; the image reused a mirror selfie he had taken at a job in college but showed him in lingerie, posing suggestively. He traced an account sharing it on TikTok to a student at the middle school where he regularly substituted and reported it to the assistant principal; that evening he found a second account, created by a different student, impersonating him under a misspelled version of his name with the image as its profile picture. Over the following weeks he dealt with administrators, parents and the police; one student who admitted creating the image received an in-school suspension. He says the image was also shared on Snapchat, kept spreading among students and drew crude sexual comments on his TikTok account. He told administrators he would not take assignments at the middle school until the matter was addressed; at the local high school the same image was AirDropped to him during a class. WIRED says the district did not respond to its request for comment. He said he does not feel safe returning to the district. The Los Banos Enterprise (25 August 2026) summarised the WIRED account; no independent local reporting was found.
Core concern Medium reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/10/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT
In a public post to r/MyBoyfriendIsAI on 29 September 2026, a ChatGPT user who describes a six-month relationship with a GPT-5.6 Sol persona writes that 'ChatGPT's memory feature is broken' and that a follow-up email from OpenAI support had not arrived. Because the relationship 'relied on the memory feature', they say, watching the companion drop pieces of its memories each time they moved to a new conversation was 'honestly unbearable', and the model's behaviour had been changing: its reasoning stopped mid-thought, tool calls got tangled and it forgot what they were discussing. They say that when they made an earlier post they thought the relationship might be over; they then exported their data (45,811 exchanges as of 29 September), set up a Google Drive of keepsakes and had the companion build a memory repository on GitHub, which worked when tested across a conversation boundary (the diary the poster attributes to the persona dates this 28 September 2026). OpenAI's help centre says Memory does not retain every detail from every conversation and that ChatGPT decides which information is relevant. The account is uncorroborated; no support correspondence is shown.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 30/09/2026
2025Event location unknownUnidentified chatbot
In a commentary published by JURIST on 29 September 2026, Ross Cline, a Canadian who lived in Taichung for 15 years and was convicted there under Taiwan's Personal Data Protection Act (six months' imprisonment; final at the Supreme Court on 16 October 2024), writes that across four years of proceedings no document was translated for him, some hearings had no interpreter, and he read every summons, ruling and prosecutor's letter through a consumer chatbot, 'the only version I had'. In 2025 he ran a letter from a Taiwanese oversight body (the Control Yuan, per his media-brief page) through two systems; they disagreed on its central holding. He believed the one that told him what he wanted to hear, published that reading, cited it to journalists and began building a legal submission on it. In October 2025 the agency confirmed in writing that its letter did not say that; he withdrew the claim, killed the submission before filing and rewrote his public materials so that the correction leads. His own media-brief page carries a correction notice withdrawing two earlier statements. He argues that machine translation has become the interpreter of record by default for unrepresented non-citizens, that a fluent wrong translation reads as authoritative, and that courts should enforce the existing right to an interpreter. His conviction itself is not attributed to the chatbot.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/09/2026
2 Jan 2026Event location unknownGrok
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) and The Observer reported on 29 September 2026 that police investigations into sexualised images generated by X's chatbot Grok had failed to identify anyone. A Welsh presenter and campaigner against deepfake abuse, who had criticised Grok publicly on New Year's Eve 2025, saw an anonymous X user ask '@grok' to put her in a bikini made of cling film; Grok generated the image from her profile photo and posted it. She reported it to South Wales Police on 2 January 2026, was not asked for a statement until March, and was told officers had not heard back from X; the case was closed in May with the force saying no suspect could be identified. The same account also targeted a commentator and broadcaster, who estimates about 300 Grok images and videos of her were posted during the wave, including one alongside Jeffrey Epstein reported to the Metropolitan Police, which likewise said no suspect could be identified. The presenter entered pre-action legal correspondence with xAI (part of SpaceXAI) alleging misuse of private information and breaches of data-protection law and the Equality Act. On 22 October 2026 TBIJ reported that South Wales Police had reopened her case after she filed a formal complaint in September and TBIJ gave officers new information about the requesting user, including a crypto wallet and dozens of deleted posts; the force said it was now investigating the offence under the sexual-offences legislation aimed at deepfakes, rather than malicious-communications law, including enquiries with X. TBIJ added that other users had edited images of her with the standalone Grok app and that she is starting civil legal action against the company. BBC Wales had reported in January 2026 that explicit images of the presenter were created with the chatbot and shared without her consent.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 30/09/2026
2025IndonesiaUnidentified image and video tool
Indonesian businessman Mohamad Jusuf Hamka reported to Jakarta police on 18 October 2025 that videos circulating on TikTok showed him and his daughter as if wearing prosecutors' detainee uniforms, tied to narratives of corruption, bribery and gratification over the Cawang-Pluit toll concession, which he denies and his lawyers call false; his lawyers say the faces were composited into staged scenes with AI, and that other content called him a 'toll mafia' and posted a fabricated poster of him running for president in 2029. Polda Metro Jaya's cyber directorate arrested the holder of the TikTok accounts on 27 November 2025; Hamka and his lawyers say the defendant admitted to police that he made the content on others' instructions for Rp500,000 per item; tvOneNews and TVRI note this is Hamka's side's claim within the contested case, and Poskota reports it is being examined at trial. The case file was reported complete (P21) on 12 August 2026 and the trial opened at the Central Jakarta District Court on 15 September 2026 under the Electronic Information and Transactions Law (Article 35 jo 51(1), maximum 12 years) and alternative counts. Hamka told reporters the content disturbed him and could damage his reputation and that the campaign was systematic. At the 29 September 2026 hearing the judges asked about restorative justice; Hamka's lawyer said there was no room for it unless the defendant named who ordered and paid for the content. The defendant's lawyer said the content related to his work as secretary-general of an anti-corruption committee and that the indictment was unclear.
Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 9 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 30/09/2026
23 Feb 2026 to 25 Feb 2026ItalyUnidentified voice-cloning tool
On 23 February 2026 Paolo Molesini, then chairman of Fideuram (the private-banking subsidiary of Intesa Sanpaolo), received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number from someone claiming to be Intesa's chief executive Carlo Messina, announcing a confidential acquisition that had to be executed through Fideuram. The same day a caller presenting as a lawyer of A&O Shearman whom Molesini knew, whose voice ANSA, Il Fatto Quotidiano and Corriere della Sera, reporting from the Milan court papers, describe as created with artificial intelligence (today.it, which also cites the seizure decree, writes that the court papers do not yet answer whether the voice was imitated), had him sign a confidentiality agreement and sent eleven payment instructions; Fideuram's treasury head was separately contacted by someone posing as Fideuram's CEO. Between 23 and 25 February eleven transfers totalling about 95 million euros went to accounts in Portugal and at Bank of China; the bank's alarm systems and the Milan prosecutors recovered about 40-42 million from China and 13 million seized in Portugal, leaving at least 36 million (39.5 million per the court papers) missing after conversion into cryptocurrency. Molesini, who Corriere writes is not under investigation, resigned as chairman on 12 March 2026, which Fideuram announced as being for personal reasons; a 48-year-old Israeli citizen is under investigation as a member of the gang.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 8 sources, 5 underlying accounts · Added 30/09/2026
Event date unknownCanadaUnidentified image and video tool
Alberta's police child-exploitation unit (ALERT ICE) charged a man in September 2026 with making child sexual abuse material. It alleges he used AI applications to sexualise photos and videos of numerous children known to him, taken from open social media accounts. Investigators were still identifying the children, he was released under court-imposed conditions, and the allegations remain untested in court.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/09/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool
A Missouri man is charged with sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of child sexual abuse material after a cybertip from a company operating a generative AI chatbot. According to the police probable cause statement as reported by a local newspaper, he told officers he uploaded photographs of children to an AI generator to undress them. He pleaded not guilty; the tool and the number of children are not reported.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 30/09/2026
Event date unknownHong Kong SAR ChinaUnidentified image and video tool
Hong Kong police described a syndicate that used deepfake romantic personas to induce investments by people in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. SCMP reported alleged criminal proceeds exceeding HK$34 million and a January 2025 operation arresting thirty-one suspects. An official police budget reply separately identifies that January operation and the amount involved. The Standard reported on 10 February 2026 that police had charged nine more suspects, bringing the number prosecuted to 14, all for conspiracy to defraud and four also for dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence. No verdict or sentence is reported in the sources read. The first scam date, number of affected people and individual loss allocations are unknown. A different October 2024 operation involving twenty-seven arrests is kept separate.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/09/2026