A man on trial for a 2016 murder in northern India allegedly faked his death with AI-edited funeral photos and a goat cremated in his place, then had a death certificate filed with the court, police said. Police in Mau, Uttar Pradesh, arrested Rajkumar Rajbhar, 38, alive on Sunday, October 25.

The “AI” in the headlines is real, by the police account. But the image was the cheapest part of the alleged scheme. What kept him officially dead for about 17 months was paperwork: a cremation slip, witness signatures and a municipal death certificate that reached a judge. That is the same weak point fraud investigators in the US and UK keep flagging as image tools get easier to use.

What police say happened in Ghazipur on May 30, 2025

Additional Superintendent of Police Anoop Kumar announced the arrest, the Press Trust of India reported in copy carried by the Times of India and Hindustan Times. Rajbhar, also known as Raju, lives in the area covered by Mau’s Kotwali Nagar police station.

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Police say he planned the fake death on May 30, 2025, in neighboring Ghazipur district. According to The Indian Express, he appeared to be unconscious when someone took him to a hospital. Photos were then manipulated to suggest his body had gone to a Ghazipur cremation ground.

Investigators suspect he lay on a prepared pyre for the pictures. A goat’s carcass was then burned in his place, police told India Today. Photos of a funeral procession and last rites were also staged, the PTI report says.

The AI did less of the work than the headlines suggest

Several reports describe “an AI-generated image of a body.” The fuller police account is narrower. “Raj Kumar used artificial intelligence to make the surroundings and the funeral pyre look authentic,” an officer told The Indian Express, adding that police are checking the identities of people in the photos.

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So this was not a fake corpse conjured from a text prompt. By the police account, someone photographed a real man on a real pyre, and software polished the scene.

The documents carried the weight. Bhaskar English reports he got a slip from the cremation ground signed by two witnesses, and printed cards for a 13th-day memorial rite on June 11. A death certificate followed.

Reports disagree on who issued it. PTI names the Mau Municipal Council. The Indian Express and India Today say it came from authorities in Ghazipur. Police say they are investigating how the certificate came through, so treat that detail as unsettled.

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A murder trial near its end, and investors he owed

The underlying case is the shooting of Yogesh Singh, a brick kiln operator, near the Munshipura railway line on December 19, 2016. Police booked Rajbhar and a co-accused after a dispute over money. Both later got bail, The Indian Express reports.

By 2025 the trial had reached its final stage, with witnesses already examined. India Today reports he feared a life sentence. Once the death papers reached the court, his case split off from the co-accused’s, an officer told The Indian Express. The reports don’t say what the court did with his file after that.

Money was the second motive, police say. Rajbhar traded stocks and, per India Today, cryptocurrency, and collected funds from people in several cities. During questioning he reportedly said two doctors who had invested with him suggested he fake his death. “We will verify the statements,” an officer told The Indian Express.

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Bhaskar English adds that police are looking into an insurance payout of about ₹10 lakh (1 million rupees) to the family after the reported death. It says police have not confirmed any irregularity.

How police found him, and what he faces now

Rajbhar did not vanish. The Indian Express says he moved between Ghazipur and Azamgarh districts and kept trading. Bhaskar English reports police said he posed as a holy man.

Local residents tipped off investigators a few days before the arrest, The Indian Express reports. Kotwali Nagar police, the district’s Special Operations Group and a surveillance team picked him up near the Khwajajahanpur area on Sunday morning. He had reportedly come home to see his family.

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A court sent him to jail after police produced him. Police have filed a fresh forgery case under India’s criminal code, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. No court has convicted him of the murder or the forgery. No outlet we found has reported a response from him or a lawyer.

Faking a death is a paperwork crime, in India and the US

The case drew international coverage, including from The Independent. The lesson travels because the target is the same everywhere: the registry that declares someone dead.

In the US, a physician, medical examiner or coroner certifies the cause of death, and a funeral director files the certificate with a registrar. Many states run this through electronic death registration systems, the CDC’s physicians’ handbook explains. People have gamed that system without any AI.

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Kentucky man Jesse Kipf logged into Hawaii’s death registry in January 2023 with a doctor’s stolen credentials and certified his own death. He owed more than $116,000 in child support. A federal court sentenced him to more than six years in prison, NBC News reported.

What generative AI changes is the cost of the supporting evidence. The Treasury Department’s financial crimes unit, FinCEN, warned banks in November 2024 about rising reports of deepfake media in fraud. It said these schemes often involve altering or creating fake identity documents.

Insurers report the same pattern with simpler edits. Allianz said incidents in which people used apps to distort real images, videos and documents rose 300% between 2021-22 and 2022-23, The Guardian reported.

Indian politicians have fought over photos in official records before, as in the row over a Brazilian model’s picture on voter lists. Platforms are reacting too, as our look at YouTube’s tighter AI rules shows.

The next step is in the Mau court that received the death papers. “We are preparing a report for the court hearing the murder case, informing it that Raj Kumar is alive,” Circle Officer Nitesh Pratap Singh told The Indian Express. Police also plan to question the two doctors and find out how officials came to issue the certificate.