The Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU) analysed a video that apparently shows India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, and Rajdeep Sardesai, a television journalist, promoting a financial investment platform supposedly backed by the government. After running the video through A.I. detection tools and getting our expert partners to weigh in, we were able to conclude that the video was fabricated using A.I.-generated audio.
A Facebook link to the two-minutes and 24-seconds video in English was sent to the DAU tipline for assessment. The video, embedded in a post, was published on August 1, 2025 from an account created on July 10, 2025 with the display name of “News Today”. The profile details suggest that the page deals with “advertising/marketing”. The text in English accompanying the post read: “Put ₹21,000 now - get ₹455 000 in just 7 days!!”.
So far the video has received more than 66,000 views. We don’t have any evidence to suggest that this suspicious video originated from the aforementioned account or another.
The video has been packaged like a live television interview. Mr. Sardesai appears to be asking questions of Ms. Sitharaman about the supposed platform. The video opens with a split screen featuring Sardesai and Sitharaman in a medium close-up on the left and right side of the screen, respectively. Even as both the video streams seem to be playing simultaneously the accompanying audio is only heard with the one apparently featuring Sardesai.
After the initial 11 seconds the video cuts to visuals of Sitharaman followed by a segment with only Sardesai, making it appear that he’s asking her a question; this supposed sequence of question and answer repeats once more before the video ends.
A logo resembling that of Times Now, an English-language news channel in India, and a circular graphic with the word “LIVE” set against a red background are visible throughout in the top-right and bottom-left corner of the video frame, respectively. A faint watermark with the letters “UTHIYATHALAIMURAITV” can be seen in the visuals featuring only Sitharaman.
We would like to highlight that Sardesai has never been associated with Times Now as this video tries to project; it seems like a glaring sign of manipulation in the video.
Bold, static text graphics in English that read “My financial project for Indians” appear throughout at the bottom of the video frame. Below that another set of text graphics read: “Every Indian citizen who invests 21,000 rupees will receive 1,500,000 rupees in the first month of this project”; the numbers are highlighted in yellow, red and everything else is in white.
Sardesai’s backdrop comprises columns of books stacked on shelves. He appears to be speaking to the camera in all the segments that feature him. In the visuals featuring Sitharaman, she appears to be seated. Three men can be seen standing behind her though their faces are not visible, their bodies are partially visible. Multiple microphones bearing logos resembling those of Indian media houses are placed in front of her. She seems to be looking in different directions and her hands move in an animated manner as if she’s addressing someone. Light flashes on her face can be seen from time to time.
A male voice recorded over Sardesai’s video track claims that “tens of thousands of Indians” who are aged more than 40 are apparently quitting their jobs and “taking early retirement”. The voice states that the reason for the same is a “new financial platform launched by the government”.
A female voice recorded in first person over Sitharaman’s video track announces that a rare opportunity would be presented to people who “manage to catch this broadcast”. That voice goes on to talk about a financial platform which would allow people to earn “over 250,000 rupees per week” with a “minimal investment of just 21,000 rupees”.
The voice creates a sense of urgency by stating that “this video might only be available once” and that “the link is unique” and access would disappear upon closing the page. It assures that the supposed platform does not deal in “forex, shady cryptocurrencies or pyramid schemes”, but “real investment in an established company”, which has apparently “implemented this automated trading technology”. Adding that the platform employs “artificial intelligence” to analyse and predict market trends.
The voice accompanying Sitharaman’s video track claims that the supposed platform has been “tested” with a “small group of volunteers” all of whom “earned over 250,000 rupees in the first week”. It also makes a bold statement that if investors fail to make “at least 150,000 rupees” in a week, Sitharaman— since she is the purported face behind the voice— “will personally refund” the investment amount out of her “own pocket”.
The voice encourages the viewers to head to some website to complete the registration process and mentions that a “personal consultant” will guide them and “activate their access”. The video ends with the voice cautioning them against losing their “spot” if they fail to register urgently and the reassurance that, “you won’t regret it”.
Sardesai’s and Sitharaman’s lip movements appear puppet-like but are consistent with the audio tracks accompanying their video tracks. Their teeth seem to disappear and reappear several times in their respective visuals. Sitharaman’s teeth appear like a bright white patch almost throughout the video.
The video has abrupt edits. In the segments featuring Sitharaman there is at least one instance where the audio gets cut in the middle of a sentence. In one frame featuring Sardesai there is a noticeable jerk, which makes the movement of his eyes and head look odd.
On comparing the voice attributed to Sardesai and Sitharaman, respectively, with that heard in their recorded videos available online, some resemblance can be established between their real and purported voice. The accent and diction in the two sets of voices sounds pretty similar, however, the delivery sounds monotonous and is devoid of any intonation and natural pauses characteristic of human speech.
The audio track over Sitharaman’s video track is accompanied by static noise throughout. Her video track indicates that she is addressing a press conference, however, there is no ambience sound in the audio track attributed to her.
To trace Sardesai’s original video we undertook a reverse image search using screenshots of his visuals from the video under review. We found this video published on his official YouTube channel on Feb.16, 2025.
To track down Sitharaman’s original video we picked the letters that were bunched together like a watermark in the video under review and ran them through Google search. Following that clue we landed on the official YouTube channel of Puthiya Thalaimurai TV, a Tamil news channel and ran a keyword search there using “Nirmala Sitharaman”. We found this video published on May 2, 2025, which carried the same letters that were used in the watermark but there was also a “P” in that arrangement of letters and that addition made sense as it stood for the name of the channel.
The clothing and body language of Sardesai and Sitharaman in the video we reviewed and their respective original videos are identical. However, the backdrop for each of their video tracks in the doctored video seems cropped compared to the source videos. Neither of the two subjects can be found in the other’s original video footage.
Sitharaman speaks in Tamil in the original video, unlike the doctored video where the audio attributed to her is in English. Sardesai’s audio in the original video is in English with some Hindi words unlike the doctored video where the audio is entirely in English. Neither of them talk about any financial platform.
In Sitharaman's original footage, the logo of Puthiya Thalaimurai TV is visible in the bottom-right corner of the video frame. A text graphic in Tamil indicating the location of the venue from where Sitharaman was addressing the press conference is visible in the top-left corner of the frame. None of these elements are part of the doctored video.
Sardesai’s source video has no logos. And the logo resembling that of Times Now and all the text graphics in the doctored video are not part of any of the original videos.
The tone, packaging, and messaging in this video, including the suggestion of investing 21,000 rupees, is similar to several A.I.-manipulated financial scam videos that we have debunked. Many such videos have used Sitharaman’s original visuals with those of other news anchors along with synthetic audio to produce a fake narrative about financial investment platforms and schemes that are not legit.
To discern the extent of A.I. manipulation in the video under review, we put it through A.I. detection tools.
The voice tool of Hiya, a company that specialises in artificial intelligence solutions for voice safety, indicated that there is a 99 percent probability of the audio track in the video having been generated or modified using A.I.
Hive AI’s deepfake video detection tool highlighted several markers of A.I. manipulation in the segments featuring Sitharaman but did not point to any elements of A.I. in Sardesai’s segments. Their audio detection tool, however, indicated that the entire audio track of the video is A.I.-generated.
We also ran the audio track through the A.I. speech classifier from ElevenLabs, a company specialising in voice A.I. research and deployment. The results that returned indicated that it was “very unlikely” that the audio track used in the video was generated using their platform.
However, when we reached out to ElevenLabs for a comment on the analysis they told us that based on technical signals analysed by them they were able to confirm that the audio track in the video is synthetic or A.I.-generated. They added that they have taken action against the individuals who misused their tools to hold them accountable.
To get further analysis on the video we reached out to ConTrails AI, a Bangalore-based startup with its own A.I. tools for detection of audio and video spoofs.
The team ran the video through audio as well as video detection models. The results that returned suggested A.I. manipulation in the video track and signs of A.I. generation in the audio track. Their proprietary A.I. detector predicted manipulation in the video track with high confidence.
They noted that unnatural lip movements of both the purported speakers indicate lip-sync manipulation. They further stated that despite the voices sounding like the real people targeted through the video, the tone seems monotonous and unnatural indicating that advanced A.I. voice cloning tools were used.
Based on our findings and analyses from experts, we can conclude that separate video tracks of Sardesai and Sitharaman have been stitched together and used with synthetic audio to fabricate the video. This is yet another attempt to promote a dubious financial investment platform by falsely linking it to the government in a bid to scam the public.
(Written by Debopriya Bhattacharya and Debraj Sarkar, edited by Pamposh Raina.)
Kindly Note: The manipulated audio/video files that we receive on our tipline are not embedded in our assessment reports because we do not intend to contribute to their virality.
