12 celebrity deepfake websites seized by Manhattan DA

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office announced on September 17 the seizure of 12 deepfake website domains in what authorities described as the largest known enforcement action against celebrity deepfake sites. The platforms hosted AI-generated sexual content depicting over 1,200 individuals, including politicians, actors, musicians and social justice advocates, with at least one site allowing users to create custom deepfakes. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg stated that domestic abusers are using such technology to threaten victims, while the FBI has warned that sextortion attackers are converting social media photographs of minors into sexually explicit imagery. The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security previously seized two domains hosting hundreds of thousands of forged images in June 2026.

Seizure of distribution infrastructure addresses sites after harm has occurred but does not prevent the creation or initial transmission of abusive material. A world-leading AI safety platform such as Guardii intercepts the threat upstream by detecting sextortion and coercion patterns as they unfold in real time across messaging environments on Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and other channels. The anti-sextortion detection module identifies when a predator is escalating pressure, making threats or demanding images from a child, blocking the contact before explicit deepfake content is weaponized and surfacing the conversation to a parent, school safeguarding team or law enforcement in an emergency. This approach mitigates harm at the moment of targeting rather than relying on domain takedowns after thousands of victims have already been exploited.