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🇪🇸 Spain /Crime & Justice

AI-generated bugs used to get a free dinner

From La Vanguardia · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • A Galician restaurateur said two British diners refused to pay after showing a video that appeared to show insects crawling on the restaurant table.
  • The restaurant owner said the insects were not visible on the table or food and accused the pair of using artificial intelligence to create the video.
  • The diners paid after the owner threatened to call police, while the article describes other reported scams involving AI-manipulated payment records and deepfakes.

Two diners in Galicia allegedly tried to avoid paying for dinner by showing a restaurant worker a video of black bugs crawling across the table. The restaurateur said the images had been generated with artificial intelligence.

The couple, described as British, had ordered an expensive wine and several dishes, including seafood and meat. With the final dish, they showed the waiter a video that appeared to show insects moving across the tablecloth near the restaurant’s logo and name. They refused to send the video to the restaurant so it could be examined closely.

The anonymous restaurateur said there were no insects visible on either the table or the plate. “The video was made with AI,” the owner concluded. When the restaurant insisted that the bill had to be paid, the diners allegedly threatened to post the images on social media. They eventually paid and left after the owner threatened to call police.

The video was made with AI.

· Anonymous Galician restaurateurThe restaurant owner’s assessment of the video shown by the diners.

The incident was presented as an example of how familiar scams are adapting to new technology. The article also cites a 2025 case in which two tourists allegedly showed a hotel in Cambrils an AI-manipulated screenshot of a bank transfer. The money never arrived, and both were arrested.

It further describes the use of deepfake videos and audio to imitate famous people or invent emotional stories for fundraising. In Brazil, a journalist reported a manipulated video in which a young priest, presented as a double amputee, appealed to Catholic faithful for money. The excerpt ends as he describes his dream of obtaining prostheses.

I think this is going to become fashionable, using AI to blackmail a restaurant into giving you a free meal.

· Anonymous affected restaurateurThe owner warned that AI-generated evidence could become a recurring extortion tactic.
About this summary

Originally published by La Vanguardia in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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