Dutch use deepfake teen to appeal for murder witnesses

Dutch police said on Monday that they had received dozens of leads after using deepfake technology to bring a teenager back to life almost two decades after his murder to appeal for witnesses.

Sedar Soares was shot dead in the parking lot of a Rotterdam metro station in 2003 while throwing snowballs with friends.

For years, police have been baffled by the murder of the 13-year-old, who has now made a video with the permission of Soares’ family in which the teen asks the public to help solve his cold-case crime.

In what Dutch police believed could be a world-first, an eerily life-like image of Sedar appears in the over-minute-long video as he greets the camera and picks up a football.

Accompanied by stirring music he then walks through a guard of honor on the field, comprising his relatives, former teachers and friends.

“Somebody must know who murdered my darling brother. That’s why has been brought back to life for this film,” a voice says, before Sedar stops and drops his ball.

“Do you know more? Then speak,” Sedar and his relatives and friends say before his image disappears from the field and the video gives the police contact details.

“The fact that we have already received dozens of tips is very positive,” Rotterdam police spokeswoman Lillian van Duijvenbode said, a day after the deepfake video was released.

“But we haven’t yet checked if these leads are useable,” she told AFP.

Police at first believed Soares was shot because he threw snowballs at a vehicle, the NOS newscaster said.

However, police now claim that “he was in the wrong place at the wrong time” and was the innocent victim of a botched “rip-deal,” a term used when criminal gang members rob one another.

Police believed Soares was “a victim of underworld violence by pure bad luck” and were now seeking testimony from people who knew about the rip-off as well as witnesses to the shooting.