Nano Banana Handed a Billion Indians the Ultimate Fraud Shortcut

Google’s Nano Banana Pro dropped into the world like a quiet update, and within hours, the internet had turned it into a chaos engine. It quietly reminds us about the rise of deepfake and how OpenAI’s Sora turned social media into an AI feed. 

Interestingly, Nano Banana Pro comes just days after Google made Gemini free for all Jio users in India for 18 months. Now, every Indian has a tool to be an AI fraud creator.

Google’s model can rewrite anything inside an image, match handwriting, bend layout, and slip new text into old paper. While some are calling it magic, there are others who find it a menace. People are also using it to fake refund chats and produce doctored receipts faster than they can finish a cup of tea.

In a post on X, a user mentioned how someone’s Swiggy Instamart order of a tray of eggs came with one of those cracked. Instead of reporting it, “they opened Gemini Nano and literally typed: ‘apply more cracks.’ In a few seconds, AI turned that tray into 20+ cracked eggs — flawless, realistic, impossible to distinguish.”

The Instamart team issued a full refund thinking the photo is real. “Just pause and think about that. Our refund systems were built for a world where photos were trustworthy. But now they’re up against 2025-level AI — and they’re getting absolutely destroyed,” the user added.

All’s Well?

The funny part is that this behaviour didn’t need a breakthrough. One user wrote “FYI: Photoshop has been available since 1987!” but Nano Banana Pro changed the mood because the friction is gone. The tool doesn’t ask for layers, brushes, or patience. It just edits the world inside your photo like it has lived there for years. 

Paras Chopra, founder of LossFunk, bumped up the hype when he posted a picture of a math problem, which he fed to Nano Banana Pro and it solved it back onto the paper. He said, “Gemini solves problems on the image itself… these AIs are getting smarter and weirder!”

That was the moment the tone shifted. This wasn’t a party trick, but a rewriting of trust. Even Andrej Karpathy, the founder of Eureka Labs, pitched in his thoughts.

He said that he has been thinking about how this shift breaks not just refund systems but entire institutions. He told a school board recently that “you will never be able to detect the use of AI in homework. Full stop.” He said all detectors fail in practice and in principle, and that schools now have to assume any work done at home uses AI.

Karpathy argued that this forces a complete reset. Grading has to move back into the classroom, where teachers can actually watch students work. He said the point is not to ban AI because it is too powerful and too permanent, but to make sure students aren’t helpless without it, comparing it to calculators.

Read: Indian Developers Rank #1 in Cheating

Meanwhile, a flood of social posts followed. A user posted a fake Swiggy refund chat made using Nano Banana Pro and got a reply that said, “That’s fraud. Should not be encouraged.” Another wrote “Evil,” while someone else replied, “Free money glitch.” 

When proof becomes editable, trust leads to vulnerability. 

The alarms reached insurance companies, delivery platforms, and anyone who handles handwritten paperwork. This also creates trouble for legal documents, including Aadhaar or PAN cards in India.

Harveen Singh Chadha from Sarvam AI also expressed concerns. “Nanobanana is good but that is also a problem. It can create fake identity cards with extremely high precision. The legacy image verification systems are doomed to fail,” he posted on X, while sharing examples of it.

There was an odd mix of amusement and dread, as if people knew they were watching a system glitch in real time. On Google’s credit, the company has done its part. 

All images produced by Google tools will continue to include SynthID watermarking. Users can now upload an image in the Gemini app and “ask if it was generated by Google AI,” based on SynthID signals. Free and Pro-tier images will also include a visible Gemini watermark, which will be removed for Ultra subscribers and Google AI Studio developers.

The company said the goal is to support transparency. “We believe it’s critical to know when an image is AI-generated,” Google said.

But That’s Not Enough

A few others pointed out that this is not the first time the world has faced this. Going back to the deepfake era, people were creating a slew of fake videos of celebrities and others, and even using fake voices for fraud.

Read: How to Prevent Another ‘Jamtara’

It is simple and the examples are right. Tools don’t create fraud. Intent does. Nano Banana Pro just removed the effort barrier. Ankush Sabharwal from CoRover.ai put it bluntly: “AI isn’t the culprit here; a few people have always found ways to cheat.”

“Earlier, it might have taken longer with tools like Photoshop, but AI makes it quicker. The real issue is the intent behind using AI for deceit,” he pointed to MeitY’s draft rule that suggests a 10% disclaimer on AI-generated content. 

“Platforms generating AI content should include disclaimers, and removing them should have legal consequences,” Sabharwal said, adding that this can be handled under Section 318 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 65 of the IT Act.

Jaspreet Bindra, co-founder of AI and Beyond, said that more than the power of AI, Nano Banana Pro reveals how outdated our verification systems are — “both AI and human.”

“We have built a world that trusts photos, screenshots, and receipts as proof, but in 2025, proof can be manufactured in seconds. AI is no longer just assisting us, it is convincingly mimicking reality,” he said, while adding that the challenge is not that AI can fake cracked eggs, it is that our systems cannot tell real from fake. 

Bindra said this suggests that the need for a human in the loop for verification will always exist; in the Instamart case, at the customer service end. 

The reactions online kept spinning. Some laughed, some panicked. Some wanted watermarks, while others wanted rules. Some asked for the prompt. 

The story here is not only Google’s tool. It is how fast society recalibrates itself when a new piece of tech knocks the floor out from under shared trust. 

The irony is that most of these people are not trying to commit crimes. Some are just trying the tool for fun. Many will stop the moment they know it is illegal. But the first reaction is curiosity. The second is chaos. The third will need to be clarity. Until that arrives, Nano Banana Pro will keep doing what it does best. It will keep turning proof into a suggestion.

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