After Indonesia’s attorney general’s office announced the arrest of several oil executives for alleged corruption, footage appearing to show one of the men demonstrating how high-quality petrol is diluted surfaced online. But visual errors in the video indicate it has been generated using artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
“This is how the CEO of Pertamina mixes Pertalite and Pertamax,” reads the Indonesian-language text overlay on the video shared on TikTok on February 28, 2025. “Mixing Pertalite and Pertamax is how the Pertamina CEO made his illicit gain.”
The clip shows a man pouring green liquid from a container labelled “Pertalite” into a jar of blue fluid marked “Pertamax”. Both are brand names for petrol that state-owned energy firm PT Pertamina sells.
Screenshot of the false post, captured on March 3, 2025
The post surfaced after Indonesia’s attorney general’s office said on February 25 it had arrested executives from subsidiaries of PT Pertamina in an alleged $12 billion graft case (archived link).
Seven suspects, including at least four Pertamina officials, were arrested, it said in a statement.
They are accused of working together between 2018 and 2023 to import crude from overseas suppliers at higher prices rather than source it domestically as mandated by Indonesian law.
The case also involved a petrol blending process that is “not permitted”, according to the attorney general’s office (archived link).
Pertamina said in a statement that it would respect the investigation.
Similar videos racked up more than 16 million views on X, SnackVideo and TikTok.
“The corruption suspect has shown us how to mix the petrol, why does Pertamina still make excuses?” one user wrote, appearing to believe the clip is genuine.
“It turns out they did the mixing by themselves,” another said.
Visual errors
A watermark on the upper right corner of the video indicates it was created using PixVerse.ai, which according to its YouTube profile is a generative AI model that can “transform” text prompts and images “into stunning videos within minutes” (archived here and here).
Keyword searches on YouTube surfaced a video report from broadcaster Kompas on February 27 showing a similar scene but without the supposed petrol mixing part (archived link).
Screenshot comparison between the false post (L) and the clip from Kompas TV
An earlier report from Antara news agency includes a closely-matching image. It identified the man as Riva Siahaan, CEO of a Pertamina subsidiary firm, leaving the attorney general’s building after he was arrested (archived link).
An analysis of the video also found multiple visual errors. It starts with the man’s handcuffs suddenly disappearing to show him holding a container.
Two seconds in, his hand dips into the green liquid without getting wet. And when he pours the fluid to the other container, it does not appear to get full.
While there is no foolproof method to spot AI-generated media, identifying watermarks and visual inconsistencies can help, as errors still occur despite the meteoric progress in generative AI.
Screenshots of frames from the video highlighting the visual errors
AFP has previously debunked misinformation in Indonesia using AI-generated clips.
