Chennai bike taxi rider uses AI to create obscene video of teen customer, arrested

CHENNAI: The west zone cybercrime wing of the Chennai Police has arrested an Uber bike taxi rider for morphing his teenaged customer’s face into an obscene video using AI and threatening her with it after she rejected his proposal.

According to police, the complainant is a 19-year-old from Manipur and works in a beauty salon in the city. Last September, she booked an Uber bike taxi to her residence, and the accused J Joe Richard (28) was assigned the ride and many subsequent rides she booked. The two soon became friends.

However, the accused, a 28-year-old resident of Vyasarpadi, started pestering the girl for a relationship. When she turned down his proposal, she received an obscene video from a fake Instagram account, showing her face morphed into another person’s body alongside the accused. The sender threatened to circulate the video on social media.

The teen approached the city police and the west zone cybercrime cops registered a case and began investigations.

The police soon tracked down the owner of the fake account and found it was the bike rider. He sent her the manipulated video to coerce her into a sexual relationship with him, the police said.

On Thursday, the police arrested Richard and produced him before a magistrate who remanded him in judicial custody.