Fact-Check: AI-Generated Clip of a Tiger Market in Bangladesh Viral as Real

This video has been created with the help of AI, and is not real.

A video featuring a reporter walking through an alleged “tiger market,” where individuals are reportedly seen queuing to sell tigers, is being shared on social media platforms.

Those sharing have claimed that this market exists in Bagerhat, Bangladesh, and that the Royal Bengal tigers are traded there.

(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

Is the claim true?: No, the claim is false as this video is created using artificial intelligence.

What we found: At first, we searched about this alleged market but did not find any credible information to verify the claim.

• We, then, noticed some inconsistencies in the viral clip which is a common trait in videos created using AI.

• We noticed that the tiger's face in the background was slimmer and slightly tilted and the red mark highlighted in the background was the face of a person, which disappeared when the person moved around.

• We, then, divided the video into multiple screenshots and ran a Google reverse image search on some of them.

• We were led to several social media posts featuring the same video, however, their captions noted that the video was created using AI.

• We utilised Google’s ‘SynthID’ tool, designed to identify content produced by its AI models, and it verified that the video was generated with by its AI.

Conclusion: This video has been generated using AI and is not real, as claimed.

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