A 40-year-old man was arrested after using artificial intelligence to generate a fake image of a runaway wolf that South Korean authorities said obstructed an urgent investigation, the BBC reported.
After Neukgu, a 2-year-old wolf, burrowed out of a zoo in Daejeon city, officials launched an all-out effort to bring him back. The third-generation descendant’s safe return was deemed critical to a yearslong effort to revive wolf populations after native South Korean wolves became extinct in the wild in the 1960s.
Concern increased nationwide, with animal rights activists worried the wolf would be injured in the wild or perhaps killed during his rescue. South Korea’s president, Lee Jae Myung, promised that rescue teams would prioritize Neukgu’s safety, The Guardian reported.
Drones, police, emergency workers, and veterinarians all joined the search, alongside community members whose footage documenting the wolf’s movements helped guide search teams.
That’s why an AI-generated photo purporting to show Neukgu at an intersection—which began circulating hours after Neukgu went missing—prompted police to charge the man who created it. After seeing the image, the Daejeon city government issued an emergency text warning residents of a wolf in the area, and police even reportedly showed the photo at a press briefing while diverting resources to search the area, the BBC reported.
It’s unclear exactly how police identified the suspect, but the BBC reported that police reviewed security camera footage and obtained records confirming his use of AI tools. Upon arrest, the man told police that he made the image “for fun,” the BBC reported.
He now faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison or a fine of up to $6,700, as police seek to prove that the AI photo disrupted their search.
Fans used AI to celebrate safe return
After nine days of searching, Neukgu was finally returned to the zoo, where he is now recovering outside the social media spotlight.
But his Internet fame lives on as a memecoin launched shortly after his escape. On the memecoin website, Neukgu is described as a “brave wolf” in search of “freedom,” becoming a “symbol of independence” that the token supposedly represents. He’s “the wolf that wouldn’t stay caged,” the website says, while encouraging fans to buy tokens.
Early on, the wolf was nearly captured after drone footage detected him on a mountain, but he escaped the perimeter rescue workers set up, The Guardian reported. Cops also felt hot on the trail after a driver shared footage showing Neukgu trotting alongside a mountain road. Eventually, the wolf was “found and tranquilized on a hill near an expressway,” The Guardian reported. The only sign he’d left the zoo was a small fishing hook that veterinarians removed from his stomach.
You can still review Neukgu’s entire journey, however, thanks to an adorable fan-created map that tracked reported sightings. The fake AI sighting seemingly isn’t included on the map, which, translated, is titled “where you going wolf.”
An opinion piece in ChoSun.com, a local South Korean outlet, suggested that although an elementary school was briefly shut down, communities never considered Neukgu to be a threat. Rather, the wolf seemed like “a lost puppy.” One X post with 2.4 million views showed the wolf as a young pup and urged, “Look at this wolf’s face… What the hell is this guy gonna do with a face like that…”
And although police have arrested one man for making an AI image that allegedly hindered their search, many other Neukgu fans have turned to AI to make celebratory posts like the “where you going wolf” map, ChoSun.com reported. AI-generated images of “Neukgu’s Daejeon Marathon,” “Neukgu City Tour,” and “Neukgu Escape Route Tracking” have reportedly been widely shared.
