Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) shared four audio clips on their official X (formerly Twitter) account to claim that it is a conversation recorded involving Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders Supriya Sule (NCP-SP), Nana Patole (Congress) and IPS officer Amitabh Gupta.

The conversations revolved around money and cryptocurrency (Bitcoin), and all of them were speaking with one Gaurav Mehta, who is allegedly an employee of an audit firm.

BJP shared these audio clips on 19 November, a day before Maharashtra was set to witness assembly elections and claims that these are ‘proof of polling fraud’.

An archive of the post can be seen here.

An archive of the post can be seen here.

An archive of the post can be seen here.

An archive of the post can be seen here.

(These posts can be seen here, here, here and here.)

But what’s the truth?: These audio clips are not authentic and have been created using AI tools.

How did we find out the truth?: We will examine each audio clip here:

AUDIO 1: IPS Amitabh Gupta with Audit firm employee Gaurav Mehta speaking to

• To start off with, Gupta pronounces the name ‘Gaurav’ and ‘Lakshmi’ incorrectly.

• We ran this audio clip on the AI-detection tool, TrueMedia, which concluded that there was substantial evidence of manipulation.

• AI-Generated Audio Detector returned with 100 percent confidence which concludes that the audio is fake.

  

  Here are the results by TrueMedia.

  

  Here are the results by TrueMedia

• Team WebQoof contacted ConTrails AI, a Bengaluru-based startup, that has developed its own AI technology for identifying fake audio and video content.

• Their report indicated that the audio file is AI generated or manipulated with high confidence.

  

  Here are the results by ConTrails.

• AUDIO 2: Congress leader Nana Patole in conversation with IPS Amitabh Gupta

• In this short audio clip, Patole is allegedly threatening Gupta to convert the bitcoin for cash.

• When we uploaded the video to TrueMedia’s AI-detection tool, it concluded that this audio is fake too. There was little evidence of manipulation.

  

  Here are the results by TrueMedia.

  

  Here are the results by TrueMedia

However, when we uploaded the clip as an audio file, the results found little evidence of manipulation.

Click here to view TrueMedia’s result.

• We also compared Patole’s voice in the audio recording to his interviews on YouTube channel, The Lallantop, shared on 15 November 2024. The voice in the audio clip did not match Patole’s original voice.

Another online AI-detection tool, Hive Moderation, also concluded that this audio has been cloned and is not real.

Here are the results by Hive Moderation.

The Misinformation Combat Alliance’s (MCA) Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU) also ran the clip through third-party AI audio detection tools.

AUDIO 3: Supriya Sule in conversation with Mehta

• In this audio clip, Sule asks Mehta for cash in exchange for bitcoins.

• We compared Sule’s voice in the voice note to her interview on Samdish Bhatia’s video podcast, Unfiltered By Samdish in 2023.

• We noticed that her original voice does not match the one heard in the audio clips shared by BJP.

  

  Here are the results by TrueMedia.

  

  Here are the results by TrueMedia.

  

  Here are the results by Hive Moderation.

• ConTrails report also noted that the audio is manipulated.

  

  Here are the results by ConTrails.

• Moreover, Sule took to X to clarify that this audio clip shared by BJP linking her to a conversation regarding Bitcoins is fake.

• She has also lodged a cyber crime complaint.

Familiar tactics of spreading false information to manipulate the righteous voters are being resorted to, a night before the polling day. We have filed a criminal complaint to the Hon’ble ECI & the Cyber crime department against the fake allegations made of bitcoin… pic.twitter.com/g8Selv1DFk

— Supriya Sule (@supriya_sule) November 19, 2024

AUDIO 4: Second conversation between Gupta and Mehta

It noted that Audio Spoof detection AI model indicated AI generation with high confidence.

Here are the results by ConTrails.

Here are the results by TrueMedia.

Here are the results by TrueMedia.

Conclusion: BJP shared AI-generated audio clips of Supriya Sule, Nana Patole and Amitabh Gupta and falsely linked it with “polling frauds”.

(This story was originally published by The Quint, and republished by NDTV as part of the Shakti Collective)