It took just a few days for Indian Instagram sensation Babydoll Archi to double her following to 1.4 million, thanks to a couple of viral social media moments.
One was a video that showed her in a red sari, dancing seductively to Dame Un Grr – a Romanian song. And a photo posted on the platform showed her posing with American adult film star Kendra Lust.
Suddenly everyone wanted to know about her – and the name Babydoll Archi trended in Google search and spawned countless memes and fan pages. But there was one issue about to emerge – there was no real woman behind the online sensation.
The Instagram account was fake, although the face it used had uncanny likeness to a real woman – a homemaker in Dibrugarh city in Assam, whom we’ll call Sanchi.
The truth unravelled after her brother lodged a police complaint. Pratim Bora, Sanchi’s ex-boyfriend, was arrested.
Senior police officer Sizal Agarwal who’s heading the investigation told the BBC that Sanchi and Bora had a falling out and the AI likeness he created was to exact “pure revenge” on her.
Bora – a mechanical engineer and a self-taught artificial intelligence (AI) enthusiast – used private photos of Sanchi to create a fake profile, Ms Agarwal said.
Bora is in custody and has not made any statements yet. The BBC has reached out to his family and will update the article when they speak.
Babydoll Archi was created in 2020 and the first uploads were made in May 2021. The initial photos were her real pictures that had been morphed, Ms Agarwal said.
“As time passed, Bora used tools such as ChatGPT and Dzine to create an AI version. He then populated the handle with deepfake photos and videos.”
The account started picking up likes from last year but it started gaining traction from April this year, she added.
Sanchi is not on social media and she found out about the account only once the mainstream media began profiling Babydoll Archi, describing her as “an influencer”. Reports speculated that she could be joining the US porn industry – surely a first for someone from the north-eastern state of Assam.
The short two-paragraph complaint to the police submitted by Sanchi’s family on the night of 11 July came with printouts of some photos and videos as evidence.
Ms Agarwal says it did not name anyone because they had no idea who could be behind it.