Exposing Venezuelan Celebration Videos and AI Images of Nicolás Maduro.

Synthetic images claiming to depict Venezuela's president under arrest following his apprehension by the American authorities have amassed many millions of impressions across the internet.

How AI Images of Maduro Surfaced Rapidly

The first fabricated synthetic picture apparently displaying him taken off a aircraft surfaced shortly after. This image was unpublished by any verified American sources; it was instead published on X by an profile describing itself as an “AI video art enthusiast”.

Verification involved the SynthID tool, which found the picture was generated or edited with Google AI.

Additional synthetic images began to spread in the following hours, seemingly depicting additional perspectives of the leader under guard. Discernible watermarks on these pictures show they originated from an Instagram account named ultravfx.

The detection tool confirms these additional pictures were likewise produced using generative models.

Authentic Image Posted but Fakes Persisted

The former US president shared the first real photo of Maduro restrained aboard the USS Iwo Jima on Saturday morning. Yet following this confirmation was made public, AI-generated pictures continued to spread but were modified to include the gray sweatsuit seen on Maduro.

Digital forensics show these updated fakes were initially shared on TikTok by a graphic design profile. Again, analysis confirms these further images were produced with AI tools.

Key Points:

• Deepfakes gained traction after the news of Maduro's capture.
• The first fake image was shared within hours on social media.
• Tools like AI-watermark detectors were used to verify the pictures as AI-generated.
• Fabrications persisted to spread and evolve even after the publication of authentic photographs.
• The origin of several fabricated images was traced to specific online accounts dedicated to graphic design.