South Korea was gripped by the nine-day hunt for a wolf that had escaped from a zoo—a search that police now say was temporarily thwarted by a man's AI-generated image. Police in Daejeon say they arrested an unnamed 40-year-old who allegedly generated and shared a fake image (see it here) of escaped zoo wolf Neukgu, sending search teams scrambling to the wrong location earlier this month. The doctored picture appeared to show the two-year-old wolf trotting through the intersection near the O-World zoo, reports the Chosun Daily.
It was taken seriously enough that officials sent an emergency text to locals warning "the wolf had moved toward the O-World intersection," and the image was displayed at a press briefing. Authorities had been focused on searching nearby mountains, but widened the search area to include the image's location. The man reportedly told investigators he made the image "for fun," the BBC reports.
He's being probed on suspicion of obstructing government work by deception; if convicted, he faces up to five years in prison or a fine of up to about $6,700. Neukgu, part of a program to reintroduce the now-vanished Korean wolf, was finally recaptured nine days after slipping out of the O-World zoo, a saga that drew national attention and even a public prayer from President Lee Jae Myung. Since his capture, a slew of AI-generated Neukgu memes have popped up online; see some here.
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