#FactCheck:AI-Generated Video of PM Modi Falsely Shared with Claim About Rising Sugar Prices

Executive Summary

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A video clip carrying the logo of news channel Republic is being shared on social media. In the video, former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is allegedly heard saying, "If these radical Muslim terrorists do not back off from imposing terror-based governance over Bangladesh, our goal will be to finish them by any means. I will request Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make Bangla a single province by combining East and West Bengal. We will bring back a secular democracy, which I will lead in the future to restore Bangla to its secular roots." The CyberPeace Research Wing found that the visuals in the viral video are genuine, but the audio has been altered using artificial intelligence (AI) and is being circulated with a false claim.

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Claim:

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A Facebook user shared the video claiming that Sheikh Hasina proposed merging East and West Bengal to create a single province during her recent address. The link to the post, archive link, and screenshot are provided below.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1567119714918951 

https://archive.ph/sd88x 

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FactCheck

During the research, several key frames from the viral video were extracted and a reverse image search was conducted using Google Lens. The search led us to the original video of Sheikh Hasina’s interaction available on the official social media accounts of Republic News. The link to the post and screenshot are provided below.

https://x.com/republic/status/2084999748755554323?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

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Republic shared the original video on its official X account on August 5, 2026. A comparison between the viral clip and the original footage revealed that the alleged statement about merging East and West Bengal into a single province does not appear anywhere in the authentic video. In the original video, Sheikh Hasina can be heard discussing the responsibilities of law enforcement agencies during periods of unrest. The controversial audio added to the viral clip is not part of the original recording. Further analysis of the viral video’s audio raised suspicion that it was AI-generated. The video was scanned using the AI detection tool Hive Moderation, which indicated a 91 per cent probability that the speech used in the viral video was AI-generated.

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In the next step of the research, the viral audio was analysed using the Resemble AI tool. The results indicated that the audio was likely manipulated, suggesting that it had been altered using artificial intelligence (AI).

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Conclusion:

The research found that the visuals used in the viral video are genuine, but the audio has been modified using AI and is being shared with a false claim. The claim that Sheikh Hasina spoke about merging East and West Bengal into a single province is false.

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Perth, Western Australia — For most of the past year, the name TeamPCP has circulated quietly within cybersecurity circles as shorthand for a particular kind of dread: not the dread of a phishing email or a suspicious link, but the dread of software you already trusted turning against you. This week, that quiet circulation became public record. The Australian Federal Police, working alongside the FBI and the Western Australia Police Force, arrested and charged two Western Australian men, aged 21 and 23, with a combined 14 offences over their alleged role in the group.

The arrests themselves are notable. The story behind them is more so.

A Campaign Built on Borrowed Trust

TeamPCP's alleged method was not to break down the front door. It was to compromise the door itself, the trusted mechanisms by which developers pull code into their own projects every day. The group has been linked to widespread supply-chain attacks that targeted open-source software and developer platforms to steal credentials, authentication secrets, and source code, with high-profile incidents affecting projects including Trivy, LiteLLM, Telnyx, SAP, and TanStack, alongside breaches at organisations such as the European Commission, Mistral AI, OpenAI, and GitHub. Reporting has also linked the campaign to ecosystems including GitHub Actions, Docker Hub, npm, PyPI and OpenVSX, the invisible plumbing through which most modern software is assembled.

The scale, as alleged by investigators, is difficult to overstate. Authorities say the malicious code potentially compromised over a thousand organisations worldwide, enabling the theft of roughly half a million credentials and the exfiltration of at least 300GB of data, figures that should be understood as allegations under active investigation rather than an independently verified victim count. The AFP itself has said the compromise of a small number of trusted software components had a significant global impact, with remediation costs estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Why This Attack Was So Hard to See Coming

The mechanics matter. Rather than tricking a user into clicking something malicious, the alleged operation worked by compromising the credentials developers use to publish legitimate software updates, then pushing tampered versions out through the same trusted distribution pipelines millions of applications rely on automatically. There is no obviously suspicious file, no rogue website, only a routine update, arriving exactly where it was expected.

Investigators also describe a cascading structure to the intrusions: credentials harvested from one compromised project reportedly opened the door to the next, turning isolated breaches into a chain reaction across the open-source ecosystem. TeamPCP has been described as running one of the most consequential campaigns of software supply-chain attacks investigators have tracked, and the group's reach extended notably into the AI stack — LiteLLM, one of the projects reportedly compromised, is an open-source gateway widely used to connect applications to large language model providers, meaning the attack's blast radius extended into the very infrastructure powering today's AI boom.

The Investigation and the Charges

The two men were charged following a joint investigation by the AFP and WAPF, working in parallel with the FBI, into what authorities describe as a sophisticated cybercrime syndicate accused of creating malicious open-source software to defraud thousands of global businesses. The charges span identity theft, unauthorised data modification, and money laundering, with maximum penalties ranging from three to twenty years' imprisonment. Search warrants were executed in Perth on 26 August 2026, and investigators seized electronic devices for forensic analysis after raids at properties in Cottesloe, Hamilton Hill, and Mandurah. FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Brett Leatherman noted the significance of the international cooperation involved in the case, while investigators have not ruled out further arrests.

The Real Story: A Governance Problem, Not Just a Crime Story

It would be easy to file this under "hackers caught" and move on. But the more consequential story is structural. Modern organisations do not merely secure their own infrastructure, they inherit risk from every library, package, CI/CD pipeline, repository, vendor and developer tool they depend on, often without ever auditing that dependency chain directly. Guidance from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on securing open-source software has increasingly emphasised managing these dependencies through software bills of materials (SBOMs), precisely because so few organisations can otherwise answer a basic question: what, exactly, is running inside our systems?

TeamPCP's alleged campaign is a case study in why that question can no longer be optional. If an organisation's security posture is only as strong as the thousands of components it silently trusts, then supply-chain security is not a developer problem to be quietly patched — it is a governance issue, deserving board-level attention, vendor accountability frameworks, and mandatory disclosure practices.

CyberPeace's Take

At CyberPeace, we've been watching campaigns like TeamPCP's less as isolated incidents and more as a pattern that keeps repeating with higher stakes each time. What stands out to our team isn't the sophistication of the code, open-source poisoning is, frankly, not a new technique, it's the sophistication of patience. Compromising a maintainer's publishing credentials and simply waiting for the next scheduled release to carry the payload downstream is a strategy built for an ecosystem that still largely operates on implicit trust rather than continuous verification. That gap between how fast software moves and how slowly trust is actually checked is precisely where operations like this thrive.

We'd also push back gently on treating this as a "developer hygiene" story. Most engineering teams pulling in a package from npm or PyPI are not, and should not be expected to be, forensically auditing every dependency update by hand, that isn't scalable, and it was never a realistic line of defence. The actual fix has to sit further upstream: provenance verification baked into CI/CD pipelines, signed commits and releases treated as non-negotiable rather than optional, and SBOMs that are actually queried during incident response rather than generated once and filed away.

Our broader concern, honestly, is about incentive alignment. Open-source maintainers are frequently unpaid or under-resourced volunteers holding publishing keys to software depended on by billion-dollar enterprises. Until organisations that consume open-source software at scale start meaningfully funding its security, not just its development,  this pattern isn't going away. It will simply find its next entry point.

References

• Australian Federal Police. Two WA men charged following AFP-FBI-WAPF disruption of alleged global cybercrime syndicate. afp.gov.au
• Bleeping Computer. Australia arrests alleged TeamPCP hackers behind supply-chain attacks. bleepingcomputer.com
• CyberScoop. Two alleged TeamPCP members arrested and charged after months of software supply-chain chaos. cyberscoop.com
• Cyber Daily. Busted! Alleged Aussie hackers linked to TeamPCP arrested in joint AFP-FBI-WAPF operation. cyberdaily.au
• Help Net Security. Two alleged TeamPCP hackers arrested over global supply chain attacks. helpnetsecurity.com
• Krebs on Security. Two Alleged 'TeamPCP' Hackers Arrested in Australia. krebsonsecurity.com
• TechCrunch. Australian police arrest two over TeamPCP hacks targeting Mercor, OpenAI, and others. techcrunch.com
• The Hacker News. Alleged TeamPCP Hackers Charged in Australia Over Major Supply Chain Attacks. thehackernews.com

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Background

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Cyber slavery and online trafficking have become alarming challenges in Southeast Asia. Against this backdrop, India successfully rescued 197 of its citizens from Mae Sot in Thailand on November 10, 2025, using two Indian Air Force flights. The evacuees had fled Myanmar’s Myawaddy region in October after intense military operations forced them to escape. This was India’s second rescue effort within a week, following the November 6 mission that brought back 270 nationals from similar conditions. The operations were coordinated by the Indian Embassy in Bangkok and the Consulate in Chiang Mai, with crucial assistance from the Royal Thai Government.

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The Operation and Bilateral Cooperation

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The operation was carried out with the presence and supervision of Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul of Thailand and Indian Ambassador Nagesh Singh, who were both present at the ceremony in Mae Sot. This way, the two countries have not only proved but also cemented their bond to fight the crimes which were mentioned before and more than that, they have even promised to facilitate communication between their authorities. Prime Minister Charnvirakul thanked India for the quick intervention and added that Thailand would be giving the needed support for the repatriation of the other victims as well.

“Both parties reaffirmed their strong commitment to the fight against cross-border crimes, including cyber scams and human trafficking, in the region and to improving cooperation among the relevant agencies in both countries.”, Embassy of India, Bangkok.

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The Cyber Scam Network

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The Myawaddy area in Myanmar has made a quick shift to become a hotspot for the entire world of cybercrimes. Moreover, the crimes are especially committed by the organised criminal groups that take advantage of foreign nationals. After the Myanmar military imposed a restriction in late October, over 1,500 people from 28 nations moved to Thailand because of the KK Park cyber hub and other centres being raided.

A UN report (2025) indicated that this fraud activity is part of a larger network that extends the countries populated with very low-tech criminals who target the most naïve, and they are the very ones who end up being tortured. The trafficked persons often belong to the local population or come from neighbouring countries and are recruited with the promise of high salaries as IT or customer service agents, only to be imprisoned in a compound where they are forced to perform phishing, investment fraud, and cryptocurrency scams aimed at the victims all over the globe. These centres operate in border territories having poor governance, easy-to-cross borders, and little police presence, hence making human trafficking a major factor contributing to cybercrime.

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India’s Response and Preventive Measures

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The Indian Embassy in Thailand worked hand in hand with the Thai government to facilitate bringing back and repatriating the Indian citizens who had entered Thailand illegally when they were escaping Myanmar.

The embassy was far from helpless in the matter. In the case of the embassy's advisory, they suggested to the citizens that:

• It is mandatory to check the authenticity of the job offers and the agents before securing employment in other countries.
• Such employment by means of tourist or visa-free entry permits should be avoided, as such entries allow only for a short-duration visit or tourism.
• Be careful of ads claiming high pay for online or remote work in Southeast Asia.

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The embassy reiterated the Government of India’s commitment to ensuring easy access to assistance for citizens overseas and to addressing the growing intersection between cyber fraud and human trafficking.

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CyberPeace Analysis and Advisory

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The case of Myawaddy demonstrates that cybercrime and human trafficking have grappled to become a complicated global threat. The scam centres gradually come to depend on the trafficked labour of people who are being forced to commit the fraud digitally under coercion. This underlines the requirement for the cybersecurity measures that consider the rights of humans and the protection of the victims, not only the technical defence.

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1. Cybercrime–Human Trafficking Convergence: 

Cybercrime has moved up to the level of a human trafficking operation. The unwilling victims of such fraud schemes are scared for their very lives or even more, not of a reliable way out. This situation is such that one cannot tell where cyber exploitation ends and forced labour begins.

2. Cross-Border Enforcement Challenges:

To effectively carry out their unlawful acts, the criminals use legal and jurisdictional loopholes that are present across borders. Dismantling such networks requires the regional cooperation of India, Thailand, and ASEAN countries.

3. Socioeconomic Vulnerability:

The situation with unemployment being stagnant and the public not being educated about the situation makes people, especially the youth, very prone to scams of getting hired overseas. Thus, to prevent this uneducated flocking to the fraudsters, it is necessary to constantly implant in them the knowledge of online literacy and the importance of verification of job offers.

4. Public–Private Coordination: 

The scammers’ mode of operation usually includes online recruitment through social media and encrypted platforms where their victims can be found and contacted. In this regard, cooperation among government institutions, tech platforms, and civil society is imperative to put an end to the operation of these digital trafficking channels.

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CyberPeace Expert Advisory

To lessen the possibility of such incidents, CyberPeace suggests the following preventive and policy measures:

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Individuals:

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• Trust but verify: Before giving your approval to anything, always verify the job offer by official embassy websites or MEA-approved recruiting agencies first.
• Watch out for red flags: If a recruiter offers a very high salary for almost no work, asks for tourist visas, or gives no written contract, be very careful and pull out immediately.
• Protect your documents: Give a trusted person the responsibility of keeping both digital and physical copies of your passport and visa, and also register your travel with the MADAD portal.
• Report if in doubt: If an agent looks suspicious, contact the nearest Indian Embassy or Consulate or report it to cybercrime.gov.in or the 1930 Helpline.

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Policymakers and Agencies:

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• Strengthen Bilateral Task Forces: Set up armed forces of cyber and human trafficking enforcement units in South and Southeast Asian countries.
• Support Regional Awareness Campaigns: In addition to targeted advisories in local languages, the most vulnerable job seekers in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities should also receive such awareness in their languages.
• Overseas Employment Advertising should be regulated: All digital job postings should be made to meet transparency standards and fraudulent recruitment should be punished with heavy fines.
• Invest in Digital Forensics and Intelligence Sharing: Create common databases for monitoring international cybercriminal groups.

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Conclusion

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The return of Indian citizens from Thailand represents a significant humanitarian and diplomatic milestone and highlights that cybercrime, though carried out through digital channels, remains deeply human in nature. International cooperation, well-informed citizens, and a rights-based cybersecurity approach are the minimum requirements for a global campaign against the new breed of cybercrime that is characterised by fraud and trafficking working hand in hand. CyberPeace reminds everyone that digital vigilance, verification, and collaboration across borders are the most effective ways to prevent online abuse and such crimes.

Reference

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• https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/197-indians-repatriated-from-thailand-by-special-indian-air-force-flights-9611934
• https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-airlifts-citizens-who-worked-in-myanmar-cybercrime-hub-from-thailand/article70264322.ece
• https://www.mea.gov.in/Images/attach/03-List-4-2024.pdf

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