# UP teen fakes own kidnapping with AI image to extract ransom 2026-08-13T18:55:29+00:00 | India | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 2 independent outlets A 16-year-old boy in Uttar Pradesh's Gorakhpur staged his own kidnapping and sent his father an AI-generated image showing blood on his face and tape over his mouth, demanding a ransom. Hindustan Times reports the boy first asked for Rs 1 lakh and, when his father said he could not arrange it, raised the demand to Rs 2 lakh in cash. India Today says the demand was only Rs 1 lakh. The teenager, a Class 11 student, was addicted to online gaming and had already lost nearly Rs 3 lakh playing, borrowing money from friends who then pressed for repayment. He left home on Tuesday evening, put his phone on flight mode, and later connected to a friend's Wi-Fi to send the ransom message. His Delhi-based girlfriend helped create the fake image, police said. Officers used call records and CCTV to trace him to a friend's house in Sikriganj within two hours. He confessed to fabricating the abduction to get money for online gaming. Police are probing whether others helped him. ## Coverage - hindustantimes.com - indiatoday.in Tags: AI image, fake kidnapping, online gaming, ransom, teenager, Uttar Pradesh Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/up-teen-fakes-kidnapping-with-ai-image-to-pay-online-gaming-debt/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/up-teen-fakes-kidnapping-with-ai-image-to-pay-online-gaming-debt/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes.