Japan arrests man for selling half a million AI porn deepfakes of celebrities

Japanese police have arrested a 31-year-old man for selling AI-generated celebrity porn, with his collection amounting to a staggering 520,000 images of women, comprising 300-plus celebrities.

During a six-month period from December 2024 to May 2025, Tetsuro Chiba illicitly pushed packages of graphic images (in a set of 14) at a named price. His profits to date have allegedly totalled over $70,000.

Chiba used publicly available AI tools to covertly fabricate the deepfakes, and in turn promoted the content on social media. What’s unique about the behaviour is that he operated in plain sight.

The suspect also threw in a bespoke service, charging premium prices if the customer requested a particular celebrity.

Culturally sensitive

Producing such deepfakes is not illegal as such in Japan. However, creating them for commercial purposes is.

Private creation remains a grey area in Japan, compared to other Asian countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, signalling regional anxiety about the matter.

In fact, these countries have recently intervened to ban Elon Musk's controversial AI in the wake of the controversy surrounding the tools’ inappropriate image generation. Meanwhile, in the UK, a communications watchdog has launched an investigation.

Another recent case of deepfake depravity occurred with the Japanese princess Kako falling victim to fraudulent depictions of her, in underwear and covered in tattoos.

When celebrities are represented by images of such falsity, it raises worldwide awareness to a much higher level.

But members of the public are also on the receiving end of deepfake wrongdoing, with cases of juveniles creating deepfake images of classmates in Spain, and even affecting Ashley St. Clair, one of Musk's exes. Someone had allegedly generated her as a 14-year-old, in a bikini, covered in swastikas, despite her being Jewish.

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