Indonesia: police say deepfake videos of President Prabowo offering aid led viewers to pay fake 'administrative fees'; two suspects arrested in early 2025
Indonesian police say a 29-year-old man and a 25-year-old in Lampung province made or spread AI deepfake videos showing President Prabowo Subianto, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani and other officials offering government aid, with a WhatsApp number attached. According to police, viewers who contacted the number were asked to transfer an 'administrative fee' and promised a disbursement that never existed; police recorded 11 victims of the first suspect from five provinces, and the second suspect alone is said by police to have taken roughly Rp 65 million from roughly 100 people in 20 provinces since December 2024. A police forensic laboratory reported the video as a deepfake with a near-100% fake score. The suspects were arrested on 16 January and 4 February 2025 and handed to prosecutors in April 2025.
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 8 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 09/10/2026