A Bugatti hypercar for Olena Zelenska? Ukraine's First Lady falls victim to deepfake

Reports circulating on the internet are claiming that Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady, is the owner of the latest limited edition Bugatti hypercar. However, several netizens have quashed these reports and blamed Russian propaganda for the spread of this "fake news". The news of Olena buying a Bugatti Tourbillon has been dismissed by several experts as well.

A deepfake video wrongly suggests that Olena bought the Bugatti during her trip to Paris last month. According to a CNN analysis of the deepfake video, the video is part of a Russian-linked disinformation network.

The deepfake video shows an AI-generated man posing to be an employee of the Bugatti dealership in Paris who goes on to say that Olena was at a private presentation by Bugatti. The deepfake further says that she purchased its new model, the Bugatti Tourbillon, for 4.5 million euros (around $4.8 million) on June 7.

The video has tell-tale signs of being a deepfake, with the way the man's head moves with the torso almost completely stable. The video has cuts, strange accent and lip-and-mouth movements, Clément Briens, a researcher at the cybersecurity company Recorded Future, told CNN.

Pro-Russian influencers posted the video on X, formerly Twitter, and it has garnered over 18 million views in 24 hours.

The news and the videos appearto have originated from the French-language website, Verite Cachee, who even provided an invoice as proof of the purchase. Notably, most of the content on the site appears to be AI-generated.

An analysis by CNN further discovered that Verite Cache was set up recently, on June 22, 2024. Some pages on the website carry prompts with AI to create fake articles.

Bugatti issues statement on the deepfake

Bugatti “firmly denounced this disinformation campaign" in a statement on Tuesday. It added that its dealership in Paris, operated by Autofficina Parigi, a Car Lovers Group company, had been a victim of several criminal offences.

“A supposed salesman claiming to belong to the Car Lovers Group and its sports label Schumacher Group, published a video on social networks in which he indicated that the Bugatti Paris dealership sold a vehicle to the Ukrainian presidential couple,” it said.

The group “strongly denies both the existence of the transaction and, consequently, the existence of the invoice.”

“The mandatory legal details don’t appear on the invoice, the price of the vehicle is also wrong, the price of the options and their descriptions are inaccurate and inconsistent, the graphics are outdated, and the Car Lovers Group would never have allowed such a document to be issued,” the statement added.

Bugatti has also initiated legal action and filed "a criminal complaint for forgery, use of forgeries, usurpation of identity and defamation”.