Women's faces have been stolen and pasted onto pornographic images then advertised for sex in a “callous and sickening” deepfake campaign spanning years, police say.
A man has been accused of using artificial intelligence to turn women into unwilling porn stars, plastering their names and personal details on posters in public toilets, parks and other everyday spaces in southeast Queensland.
The 52-year-old allegedly used AI technology to superimpose real women’s faces onto the bodies of others in explicit poses, alongside claims they were offering sexual services.
Full names, social media usernames and employment details were allegedly displayed beside the fake ads, effectively “listing” them for sex to anyone who happened to walk past and read the posters.
Many of the women never saw the material themselves.
Instead, they were pulled aside by friends, neighbours or colleagues who quietly told them their faces were on a sex poster, police said.
Some of the victims lived in smaller communities where a single image could follow a woman into her workplace, her children’s school and the local shops, police said.
“The posters allegedly used AI technology to superimpose victims’ faces onto explicit images and included personal information such as full names, employment, and locations of where they lived,” Ipswich Detective Acting Inspector Tim Martin told reporters on Friday.
“The intention was to publicly humiliate and degrade those victims.”
Police allege the 52‑year‑old man used AI to generate the intimate images and then produced and distributed printed posters over several years, with at least eight women identified so far and more victims possible.
The victims, aged between 40 and 60, include mothers, daughters, colleagues and friends who never agreed to be depicted in the images nor consented to their personal information being used, police said.
Police became aware of the images in May after one was posted in a public venue in Gatton, in Queensland's Lockyer Valley region.
The posters were also displayed in multiple other places and date back as far as 2021.
People only had to imagine their own face — or a loved one’s — suddenly appearing on a graphic sex poster to understand the impact, Det Martin said.
"You just have to put yourself in the victims’ shoes and have a think of your face being superimposed onto an image such as that … in your professional capacity, as a mum or a sister or a daughter,” he said.
“It’s quite callous and quite sickening.”
Detectives raided the man's home at Cleveland, south of Brisbane, on Wednesday, seizing a number of electronic devices, printers and pre-prepared AI-generated posters.
Officers also found and seized an electronic control weapon, three long firearms and 25 rounds of ammunition.
The man faces 43 charges including distributing intimate images, unlawful stalking, firearm offences and using communication services to menace or harass.
He has been remanded in custody and will appear before Brisbane Magistrates Court on August 19.
