Dutch use deepfake teen to appeal for murder witnesses

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

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

The 13-year-old’s murder baffled police for years, who now with the permission of Soares’ family made a video 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 honour 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.

But police now say “he was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” and was the innocent victim of a so-called “rip-deal” gone wrong, the 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 looking for testimonies from individuals who knew about the rip deal scam in addition to witnesses to the shooting.