India, Aug. 14 -- A Class 11 student in Uttar Pradesh's Sant Kabir Nagar allegedly staged his own kidnapping to extract Rs 1 lakh from his businessman father after accumulating debt through online gaming, police said. The teenager left home on Tuesday evening, telling his family he was going to Sikriganj in Gorakhpur. He instead switched off his mobile phone and hid at a friend's house. Around 7.39 pm, his father received a WhatsApp message claiming the boy had been kidnapped, followed by a Rs 1 lakh ransom demand. When the father offered to pay cash, the alleged kidnappers demanded Rs 2 lakh. The businessman approached police, who traced the teenager using surveillance inputs and a digital trail from public Wi-Fi. He was found at his friend's house within about two-and-a-quarter hours. Police said the teenager had lost money through online gaming, exhausted his pocket money and borrowed from friends. He allegedly planned the kidnapping to repay the debt. To make the story convincing, he sent his father an AI-generated image depicting a badly injured eye. A female friend in Delhi allegedly helped create the image. The teenager was handed over to his father after questioning. The case has also exposed how AI-generated images can be used to add credibility to fabricated emergencies. In this instance, the teenager's attempt to conceal his location failed because his use of public Wi-Fi left a digital trail.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.