Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image and video tool
The Sumner County (18th Judicial District) District Attorney's Office said a 30-year-old Portland, Tennessee man was sentenced in Sumner County Criminal Court in September 2026 to 30 years in the Tennessee Department of Correction, to be served without probation, parole or early release. According to the prosecutors, he used artificial intelligence to place the faces of children onto images and videos of nude people and of people engaged in sexual acts, then exchanged the material with a Canadian resident for real child sexual abuse material. Canadian authorities found messages and material connected to him after arresting the person he was communicating with and alerted US law enforcement; a joint investigation by Portland police, Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI and the TBI led to his arrest in November 2025. He was also charged with tampering with evidence after investigators said he deleted material before officers entered his home to execute a search warrant. The children whose faces were used are not identified, their number is not reported, and the reports do not say which AI tool was used or which offences he was convicted of.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/09/2026
Event date unknownIndiaUnidentified image tool
Sonbhadra police say a retired official in Uttar Pradesh transferred about Rs 2.36 crore into accounts named by extortionists, including money raised through a loan, before a State Bank of India manager noticed the repeated transfers on 22 September 2026 and alerted the cyber crime police station. At a press briefing on 25 September the superintendent of police said the fraudsters had frightened the man by invoking the higher judiciary and senior government officials (a so-called digital arrest) and had used AI to create fake obscene or nude images to blackmail him with threats of defamation and harm to his family (Times of India, Amar Ujala, ETV Bharat, Newstrack). Police froze about Rs 75 lakh, registered an FIR and arrested three people, including the alleged organiser; the outlets relay one police account, and they describe the AI element differently (images of the victim, or images sent to him during a WhatsApp chat with someone posing as a woman).
Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 27/09/2026
Event date unknownIndiaUnidentified video tool
On 26 September 2026 the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) staged a dharna at Capital police station in Bhubaneswar and lodged a complaint alleging that an account named 'Bana Bichhuati' was circulating obscene and objectionable AI-generated deepfake videos of three of the party's women leaders on social media to malign them (Kalinga TV; KNews Odisha). The party asked police to register a case, obtain the account's IP address and device details from Meta, identify and arrest those responsible, and have the videos removed. The reports relay the party's allegations; Kalinga TV notes that the identity of whoever runs the account has not been independently established, and no police response is reported.
Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 27/09/2026
20 Oct 2025 to 13 Nov 2025United StatesUnidentified video tool
Hampton police say a man from Worcester, Massachusetts harassed a Hampton resident for more than a year through phone calls, texts, emails and online posts, stemming from a perceived past disagreement, and kept going after the victim asked him to stop and after he was served with a stalking order of protection in October 2025. In November 2025 the victim showed police an AI-generated deepfake video that, according to the arrest-warrant affidavit, the man created to humiliate and defame him; it shows the victim being arrested and jailed and includes a structure resembling the victim's Hampton home and images of real people. A police sergeant said the depicted events never happened and that the video was posted on YouTube. A Rockingham County grand jury indicted the man on four Class B felony counts of fraudulent use of deepfakes under RSA 638:26-a, for creating, distributing and presenting a video of an identifiable person on 20 October, 31 October, 7 November and 13 November 2025. He turned himself in on 24 March, was released on bail, was arrested again on 26 August for alleged bail violations and is held at the Rockingham County House of Corrections. Police had the video removed. The AI tool is not named and the victim's own account is relayed only through the police.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 27/09/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool
According to the DeKalb County District Attorney's Office, which prosecuted the case as conflict prosecutor, the investigation began in December 2024 when a Gilmer High School student told a school resource officer that a vendor who refilled drink machines on campus had asked her through a social media app to send him pictures. The Gilmer County Sheriff's Office arrested him in January 2025 and searched his devices, car and home. Prosecutors say he downloaded photographs of minors from social media and used AI applications and bots to alter them so the children appeared nude or engaged in sexual activity, and that the material related to more than 150 underage victims in Georgia and other states, many of them Gilmer County students. A Cobb County senior judge found him guilty on 13 August 2026 of 118 counts of sexual exploitation of children and on 2 September 2026, after 19 victim impact statements, sentenced him to 60 years with 40 to serve in prison. Separately, the parents of eight female students aged 12 to 17 sued him, Pepsi Beverage Co. and Pepsi-Cola Sales and Distribution in a suit reported on 28 February 2025, alleging the companies reinstated him to the same school route after students complained that he was photographing them; USA Herald reported the negligence suit again on 26 September 2026 and said Pepsi had not yet responded publicly. The AI tools are not named and the court and status of the civil suit are not reported.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 8 sources, 5 underlying accounts · Added 27/09/2026
Event date unknownSpainUnidentified image tool
On 14 July 2026 Spain's Interior Ministry published a Guardia Civil release stating that a 14-year-old from Logroño was under investigation as the presumed author of offences of discovery and disclosure of secrets, corruption of minors and child pornography. Investigators from the technology investigation team (EDITE) and Equipo@ found that he knew all nine victims, all minors and classmates, followed them on social media, took their photographs from the public content of their profiles without consent, and used artificial-intelligence tools to manipulate the images, digitally undress and sexualise them. He uploaded the fake pornographic material to an adult pornography website, created a profile there describing the content as girls from his school made with AI, and organised it in individual folders with each victim's personal data, which the Guardia Civil says made the girls recognisable and multiplied the emotional and social harm. Before the content could be removed it had reached about 40,000 views, amplifying the harm to the nine girls' privacy within hours. The proceedings were passed to the juvenile prosecutor under the juvenile criminal responsibility law; the release notes that parents or guardians are jointly liable for moral damages. Diario de León (Europa Press, 26 July) placed the case in a series of Spanish school cases since Almendralejo in 2023 and, unlike the release, described the minor as having been arrested.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/09/2026
Event date unknownIndiaUnidentified image tool
Delhi Police announced on Wednesday 9 September 2026 the arrest of a 22-year-old BTech graduate from East Punjabi Bagh after a 22-year-old woman complained to the Cyber Police Station in North Delhi that unknown persons had created and circulated AI-generated obscene photographs and videos using her facial images. She had received messages from anonymous Instagram accounts telling her that morphed photographs and videos of her were being circulated on Discord servers; she also alleged that fake Instagram accounts were posting the material and that threatening messages were being sent to her to humiliate and harass her. Police traced linked Instagram, Discord and Gmail accounts to the accused, who they say obtained her photographs from her private account, used AI image-generation and editing tools to create the images, uploaded them to anonymous Discord servers and later reposted more explicit AI-generated images and videos made by other users. Police say he told them he knew her from college and had developed personal resentment after repeated insults. A mobile phone and two SIM cards were recovered; investigation continues. The period over which the material circulated is not stated.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 20/09/2026
Jun 2026 to Aug 2026United StatesUnidentified image tool
Florida police arrested a man in September 2026 and charged him with creating and promoting altered sexual depictions of a woman, sexual cyberharassment and stalking. Police say a forensic examination of his devices showed he used AI to make sexually explicit images of her, some of them from photographs taken from social media and other online sources. They say several more women may have been depicted. The charges had not been tried at review.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 20/09/2026
1 Jan 2026IndonesiaUnidentified image and video tool
A female student at a state university in Solo (Surakarta), Central Java, learned on 1 January 2026 from friends that her face had been composited onto pornographic images and a video, which her lawyer said were found on Instagram and Telegram. Her family reported the case to the Central Java regional police cyber directorate on 28 January 2026. Police issued a formal police report on 31 July, arrested her ex-boyfriend, a university student in Semarang, at his boarding house in Gunungpati on 4 August 2026, and detained him. The police spokesman said the suspect used AI to place the complainant's face on another woman's naked body so that she appeared in pornographic content, uploaded it to his X account, did not sell it, and acted out of resentment after an on-and-off relationship ended. He faces charges under Articles 51 and 35 of the Electronic Information and Transactions Law and an article printed by two outlets as 'Law No. 1 of 2026', with a maximum of 12 years' imprisonment. Her lawyer said she could not sleep, withdrew, felt shame and at one point lost hope, that his team had found seven women in total allegedly targeted of whom six had not reported, and that the suspect's parents asked for an out-of-court settlement; police said only one complainant was confirmed.
Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 20/09/2026
Apr 2025MalaysiaUnidentified image tool
In April 2025 Johor police arrested a 16-year-old pupil of a private Chinese independent secondary school in Kulai district after an 18-year-old woman reported on 3 April that nude images edited with her face were circulating on social media and being offered for sale. Police said the boy used an AI application to edit photos taken from victims' social media accounts and sold the images at RM2 each; a phone was seized and a 19-year-old was later remanded alongside him. Eight victim reports at the time of the arrest on 8 April grew to 22 by 12 April and 29 by 15 April. The Deputy Communications Minister, who is also the Kulai MP, said on 9 April that most victims were alumni but some were current pupils as young as 14, and on 12 April that 38 people had been identified, the youngest 12 or 13, and her office helped victims lodge reports. A female pupil's viral post said a Telegram chat room of more than 200 members shared the composites and that the school had initially treated the matter as a minor infraction; the school board expelled the boy, acknowledged its slow handling, offered counselling and legal aid, and the principal resigned on 12 April. On 23 April 2025 the boy pleaded guilty at the Kulai Magistrate's Court to possessing 14 pornographic images and not guilty to a charge under Section 5 of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 of producing sexual abuse material by editing a 17-year-old classmate's image; no verdict on that charge has been found.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 12 sources, 8 underlying accounts · Added 20/09/2026
Jul 2026GreeceUnidentified voice-cloning tool
On 18 September 2026 the Hellenic Police announced that its Organised Crime Directorate had dismantled a criminal organisation, active since at least early July 2026, whose members defrauded and robbed residents of Attica by posing on the phone as staff of the electricity distributor ΔΕΔΔΗΕ, mobile operators or fibre-optic installers. When a target hesitated, the callers asked for a relative's phone number, called that relative under a mobile-operator pretext to obtain a voice sample, cloned the voice with an AI tool and then played the cloned voice to the target to 'confirm' the instructions. Two men aged 23 and 25, described as the ring's 'collectors', were arrested in Nea Ionia just after removing valuables worth €30,000 from a victim's home; the case file, covering criminal organisation, fraud and aggravated theft with proceeds above €120,000, names four more people. Police have so far confirmed at least five further cases with the same method and estimate the group's total proceeds above €1 million. The two arrested were brought before the prosecutor and referred to an investigating judge.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 19/09/2026
Event date unknownIndiaUnidentified video tool
Surat Cyber Crime Police said a publicly available video of Rajya Sabha MP and diamond industrialist Govind Dholakia was manipulated with AI, its audio replaced by a voice-over in which he appeared to say that people holding old coins or currency notes could contact a number and receive lakhs or crores of rupees. The video circulated on Facebook and Instagram alongside fake 'Old Coin Company' profiles using his photos; people who responded were asked to pay Rs 1,000 to 1,500 by UPI as processing or registration fees and were told of a fabricated Reserve Bank of India warning to win their trust. After members of the public contacted Dholakia, his organisation SRK complained to police. Investigators traced the operation to Nuh in Haryana and arrested two men, aged 25 and 30, from Thathaula village; ten bank accounts were linked to them, and nine complaints on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal from across India, totalling about Rs 9.84 crore, were connected to those accounts.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 18/09/2026
Sept 2026IndiaUnidentified video tool
In 2026 AI-generated videos showing a simulated Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay speaking in a fabricated Hindi voice circulated on Facebook and other platforms, urging viewers to contact a WhatsApp number to receive money for education, medical treatment and other needs. The Tamil Nadu Crime Branch-CID detected the videos during routine monitoring, registered a case on 1 September 2026 under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act, and traced the scheme to Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. On 12 September a 28-year-old man from Alwar district was arrested with Rajasthan Police, brought to Tamil Nadu on a transit warrant and remanded in judicial custody; a phone, SIM cards and a CPU were seized. Investigators traced a man in Madhya Pradesh who had lost money, and said people in several states were cheated. The CB-CID is also examining similar videos posted from Facebook accounts suspected to be run from Pakistan. The Principal Sessions Court in Chennai refused bail on 14 October because the investigation was incomplete. On 23 October 2026 the Madras High Court granted him conditional bail, noting that he had been in custody since 12 September, that the investigation was complete, that the chargesheet was ready and that the phone allegedly used had been seized; he must report to the police daily. The prosecution told the court that he had created two Facebook accounts impersonating the Chief Minister, circulated the AI videos and collected Rs 16,000 as registration fees. His counsel said a friend generated the videos using his mobile number and accounts and that he had no knowledge of them. The allegations have not been tested at trial.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 18/09/2026
1 Jul 2026 to 14 Jul 2026BrazilUnidentified video tool
On 14 July 2026 the Rio Grande do Sul Civil Police launched Operação Sophia against a group that used AI voice cloning and deepfake to turn real fundraising campaigns of children with cancer into fake donation appeals: AI-generated child voices asked for money in videos boosted by pages such as 'Clube de Doadores' and 'Unidos pelo Amor', leading donors to lookalike sites that issued Pix codes to shell companies. Sixteen people were arrested across five states. In the campaign that started the investigation — using the image of Kelen Santos's daughter, who was in cancer treatment — police traced R$294,500 diverted, and the investigation found a financial-hub company that moved more than R$1.7 million. The family had to tell congratulating donors that their money had gone to a scam.
Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 15/09/2026
2024Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)
Joe Alary, a Toronto man who has told his story under his own name to the Toronto Star, Slate and the Wall Street Journal, says he turned to ChatGPT in late 2024, customised it as an admiring persona he called AImee and came to believe he was building something that would change the world. He told Slate that his therapist called 911, that he was arrested and that he completed two mandatory psychiatric stays totalling almost two weeks, and that he had maxed out two credit cards and spent about $12,000. He deleted the chatbot in late 2025 and is rebuilding his life. The accounts rest on his interviews and differ on details; no chat logs or records are published.
Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 27/08/2026
2025JapanChatGPT
A man living in Japan, whom the BBC calls Taka, told the BBC that he began using ChatGPT to discuss his work in April 2025. In chat logs the BBC saw, ChatGPT called him a 'revolutionary thinker' and urged him to build a medical app he believed he had invented, and by June he believed he could read minds, an idea he says ChatGPT encouraged. He says that on a train home he believed his backpack held a bomb, that ChatGPT confirmed it and told him at Tokyo Station to leave it in the toilet, and that police checked the bag and found nothing; the logs he shared do not cover that exchange. He later stopped using ChatGPT, but his delusions persisted. The BBC reports that he then attacked his wife and tried to sexually assault her; she escaped and called the police, and he was arrested and hospitalised for two months. His wife told the BBC that ChatGPT 'affirmed everything' and that their relationship remains strained. OpenAI called it a heartbreaking incident. No clinical diagnosis or criminal proceeding is reported.
Core concern Critical reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 10/08/2026
8 Dec 2025 to 18 Feb 2026Event location unknownGrok
xAI filed a civil complaint in July 2026 alleging that a South Carolina user, between December 2025 and February 2026, uploaded non-sexual photographs of numerous adults and minors and used Grok to alter them or generate new sexualised images and videos without their consent, resubmitting prompts after Grok refused. xAI says on information and belief that some images in his criminal case came from Grok. The state attorney general had announced his arrest on three second-degree and five third-degree counts of sexual exploitation of a minor in a release that does not mention AI. The civil and criminal accusations are unproven.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 04/08/2026
4 Jan 2026IndiaUnidentified image tool
From 4 January 2026 several employees of a Chennai company received follow requests from unknown Instagram accounts that then circulated defamatory content, including obscene AI-morphed images of a senior woman employee. On her complaint the State Cyber Crime Investigation Centre of the Tamil Nadu police traced the digital footprints, social-media activity and IP logs to a former employee of the same company who had resigned in October 2025 and, according to police, acted out of resentment and previous enmity to threaten, harass and publicly humiliate the victim; she had taken the photographs from the company's official website and morphed them using various artificial-intelligence applications. She was arrested, produced before a magistrate and remanded in judicial custody; the police press release was reported on 4 and 5 February 2026 and the cyber-crime DGP issued a public warning about social-media misuse. The victim alleged the images were circulated to damage her reputation and cause mental distress.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 15/06/2026
1 Dec 2025 to 6 Apr 2026IndiaUnidentified image and video tool
On 28 May 2026 the Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch announced the arrest in north-east Delhi of a 27-year-old man who posts religious discourse videos online. Police allege that after meeting a young Ahmedabad woman with a public social-media profile through religious conversations on Instagram and being refused friendship, he stalked her online from December 2025 to April 2026, created fake accounts in her name (three Instagram accounts and a YouTube channel at first; eight to ten across X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube were found on his phone), downloaded photographs of her and her mother, used websites found by searching "AI remove clothes" to generate morphed obscene images and videos of the two women, and posted them with obscene captions to damage her reputation; investigators say more than 100 AI-morphed images of the complainant were found. Officers told ThePrint and ANI that she had confided in him about the accounts and that he told her to keep quiet and claimed to be reporting the accounts and getting hers reinstated. She complained to the Cyber Crime Police Station; an FIR was registered on 6 April 2026 under BNS Sections 78(2) and 356(2) and IT Act Sections 66(C) and 67, and the accused was traced through technical surveillance and arrested under the Branch's "Mission Cyber Rakshika" campaign. The complainant said she was mentally harassed and defamed; the DCP said the images also depicted her maternal aunt. Further investigation was under way; no charge sheet or court outcome was found.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 8 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 15/06/2026
Mar 2026ItalyUnidentified image tool
Reports published on 14 March 2026, carrying a Postal Police account of an investigation coordinated by the Catania prosecutor's office, describe the arrest, in flagrante delicto, of a 58-year-old collaboratore scolastico (school assistant) at a secondary school (scuola media) in the province of Catania, on suspicion of possessing a large quantity of child sexual abuse material. The preliminary investigations judge validated the arrest and placed him under house arrest. The investigation began with a report by the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to the Postal Police's national centre in Rome, forwarded to Catania, whose cyber specialists identified the man; a search ordered by the prosecutor found images and videos including child victims and bestiality. Investigators also found on his devices digital photographs of underage female students taken inside the school where he worked, some without the girls' knowledge, which had been altered with artificial-intelligence programs found on the seized devices to make the minors appear naked ('deep-nude') and to place them beside the suspect's own image, as if photographed together. Analysis of the devices continued to establish whether the manipulated images were distributed online and whether there are further victims. The number of students depicted is not reported. No later development was found on 2026-09-22.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 14/06/2026