AI images and false Ukraine claims spread after Krakow shooting
A Deutsche Welle fact check found manipulated images, an apparently fabricated Telegram account and misleading claims about a vehicle after the deadly attack.
By Hassan Ellis ·
False images and misleading claims about the gunman in the Krakow shooting have circulated on social media as details of the crime remain unclear. Deutsche Welle examined posts purporting to identify the attacker and connect him to Ukraine, finding evidence of AI manipulation and misrepresented photographs.
Six people were killed during the shooting spree in Krakow's Old Town on Saturday, November 7. Police shot and detained the gunman, who subsequently died in hospital. He is also suspected of killing three members of his family before the attack. Poland's national prosecutor's office announced a formal investigation on Monday.
One widely circulated image purported to show the suspect in unusually sharp detail. DW tested it with two detection tools. Hive Moderation assessed it as 99.5% AI-generated, while Google's SynthID Detector identified a watermark indicating that Google's AI technology had been used to generate or edit it. DW found several similar versions online, with some posts carrying labels identifying the images as AI-generated.
The images may have been produced using footage of the attack as a reference, DW reported. Although the outlet could not independently authenticate that footage, it found similarities between the people and surroundings shown and photographs published by picture agencies. AI sharpening tools cannot reliably recover details absent from an original image. Instead, they generate plausible additions based on the available visual information.
A separate post on X, viewed more than 700,000 times, claimed that the gunman had a Telegram account displaying a Ukrainian flag. DW found that the channel was almost certainly inauthentic. Posts dated November 3 and November 4 appeared to show a man with a gun and announce the attack date, respectively. However, both were edited on November 8, after the suspect's detention. The channel's profile picture was also changed after the shooting. Hive Moderation rated the purported photograph of the attacker as 99.9% likely to have been created with AI.
Another X post, viewed nearly 100,000 times, presented a photograph of weapons and equipment in a car trunk as evidence of the gunman's links to the Forward Observations Group. The American tactical training lifestyle brand has traveled to and operated in Ukraine. But DW found that the patch visible on a vest depicted the Old Roger flag, a symbol commonly used in military circles, rather than the group's variation featuring a horned skeleton holding a gun.
DW also established that the vehicle in the photograph was not the attacker's car at the crime scene. Its license plate was registered with Krakow police, suggesting that officers had likely moved evidence into it. The findings undermine the claims that the photograph demonstrated a connection between the gunman and the group.
