Investigations revealed that the deepfake video was posted four days after the original video. “Once the accused was identified, a team was dispatched to Guntur, Andhra Pradesh from where Eemani Naveen was arrested,” the officer said.During the interrogation, Naveen revealed that he was a big Mandanna fan and ran a fan page for her. He had also created two more fan pages of another two noted celebrities. He was managing all three pages and uploading original videos. Followers of the fan page of the other two film stars were in lakhs but Mandanna’s was only around 90,000.”Just to increase the followers of the page, the accused Naveen created her deepfake video and posted it on the fan page. Due to this deepfake video, the fan following of this page was increased from 90,000 to 1,08,000 within two weeks,” the DCP said.Later, when Naveen realized that it became a national sensation and several celebrities had spoken against the creation of the video, he got spooked and deleted the post from the Instagram Channel. Just to be sure, he changed the name of the fan page and deleted relevant digital data from his devices.On further interrogation, Naveen disclosed that, while pursuing B tech from Adhi college of Engineering and Technology, Chennai, he completed certification in Digital Marketing from Google Garage in 2019.As Naveen got more interest in digital media, he studied courses like website development, photoshop, and video editing from YouTube. He came back to the village in March 2023 and started working from home by providing services of Photoshop, Instagram channel promotion, YouTube video creation or editing and search engine optimization on a chargeable basis.
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