🔗 Share this article Exposing Venezuelan Victory Videos and AI-Generated Pictures of Maduro. Computer-created pictures purporting to portray Venezuela's president in custody after his capture by the American authorities have garnered countless of views on social media. How AI Images of Maduro Appeared Soon After Initial fabricated synthetic picture seemingly showing him led off a plane circulated a brief time later. This image was not shared any authoritative government accounts; rather, it was published on X by an account describing itself as an “enthusiast of AI-generated art”. Verification involved the SynthID tool, which found the image was created or altered with generative AI. Additional AI-generated pictures were disseminated in the subsequent period, seemingly depicting different views of Maduro detained. Discernible watermarks on these pictures show they came from an Instagram profile called ultravfx. The detection tool indicates the further pictures were likewise created or altered generative models. Real Photo Posted but Fabrications Continued The former US president shared the genuine photograph of Maduro handcuffed aboard the USS Iwo Jima on that morning. But even after this real photo was made public, synthetic pictures kept circulating but were modified to include the grey tracksuit worn by Maduro. Digital forensics show these updated fakes were originally uploaded on TikTok by a digital art account. Once again, the AI-watermark detector found the new graphics were created or altered generative artificial intelligence. Main Takeaways: Deepfakes gained traction following the announcement of the president's apprehension. The initial fabricated image was shared on the same day on social media. Tools like Google’s SynthID were used to identify the images as synthetic. Fabrications continued to spread and evolve even after the publication of real images. The origin of several fabricated images was linked to social media accounts dedicated to graphic design.