Claim:The video shows iBomma’s Immadhi Ravi explaining the hacking process to a judge in court after his arrest.
fact:That claim is false. The video is generated by AI. The content creator who created the video confirmed the source of the video to NewsMeter.
HYDERABAD: Police custody of Imadi Ravi, the alleged mastermind and administrator of the iBomma movie piracy network, ended on Monday.
What is an iBomma case?
Investigators say Ravi built a nationwide network of agents and used foreign servers and offshore payment channels to distribute pirated movies and cover his financial trail. Authorities suspect he made billions of yen through the digital piracy network iBomma.
Against this backdrop, a video started going viral on platforms such as Instagram. In the clip, a man identified as iBomma’s Ravi can be seen standing inside a courtroom typing on a laptop while explaining the “hacking process” to the judge. The man is also seen wearing a VR headset during the demonstration.
An Instagram account called “su8tvchannel” shared the video with the caption: “A video of iBomma’s Imadhi Ravi performing a live demo of Hawking while wearing a VR headset in a courtroom is going viral on social media. Ravi can clearly be seen on the witness stand, typing on a laptop and presenting the evidence of hacking in front of the judge. This shocking clip, captured on phone footage from an outside audience, has been widely shared on social media.” (Translated from Telugu) (Archived)
Similar viral posts can be seen here, here and here.
fact check
NewsMeter found this claim to be false. The video is generated by AI.
visual discrepancy
Upon closer inspection of the visuals, several inconsistencies stood out.
Court: A police officer can be seen standing next to the judge in the background, but his uniform does not resemble that of the Telangana Police. The courtroom itself looks routine and staged and is not in keeping with the Indian courtroom environment.
Introducing Imadi Ravi: The man in the video is identified as Imadi Ravi, and he can be seen sporting a beard. However, images and videos recorded at the time of his arrest show Ravi without a beard. The VR headset used in the video is also unusual, appearing to be digitally distorted in certain frames.
Video technical analysis
To verify whether the footage was manipulated, NewsMeter analyzed the clip using Deepfake-O-Meter, an AI detection tool. The company’s four detectors flagged the video as AI-generated with confidence scores of 99.9%, 98.7%, 99.9%, and 98.6%.
Video source
To trace the origin of the footage, we performed a reverse image search on Google for the viral clip’s keyframes. This led me to my Instagram profile @prajayhoney. The same video was uploaded on Nov. 23 and received more than 6.9 million views and hundreds of comments. We also found that most of the AI posts were shared under #RealFootage.
An additional AI-generated video was also found on his profile, also depicting a fictional scene of “iBomma Ravi in Jail.”
When we contacted the content creator Prajay Honey, he confirmed that he created the video using AI tools. He said, “Yes, this video was created using AI tools and shared from my profile. It was not my intention to hurt or mislead anyone. If you have specific legal concerns, please let me know and I am ready to cooperate.”
Prajay also said that he is working with a Vizag-based startup that develops AI tools. Citing his background as a professional sound engineer, he explained that the audio in the clip was generated using Kits AI and mixed and enhanced with additional sound effects to make it feel realistic.
Disclaimer posted by content author
As for how he created the video, he shared an explanation on his Instagram story, writing, “All visuals you see here are created by me. I’m exploring the future of creativity and bring you the most unique footage. Stay with me… big things are coming. (sic).”
This claim is false as the video does not show a real courtroom scene and has been confirmed by its creator to be generated by AI.
