The notification pinged on Biswajeet Swain's smartphone, a siren call promising instant wealth in September 2024. He downloaded an APK (android package kit) file of the massively popular Aviator game from what appeared to be a ‘reliable’ third-party source.
The game’s premise was deceptively simple. Players bet money on flying a virtual jet, attempting to cash out before an unpredictable crash. The longer one stayed, the more potential winnings — and risks — accumulated. Twenty-four-year-old Swain had played the game and lost Rs 35,000, the money that his family had given him to buy a laptop.
He decided to give it another shot to recover the lost money. “The game seemed genuine since so many people were making money and celebrities were promoting it,” the engineering student told Decode. Months later, he realised that the videos were made with Artificial Intelligence and the testimonials were fake.
The game was a meticulously engineered trap promoted by YouTube content creators and scammers on Telegram.
The Aviator game, though hugely popular, is not legal in India. The betting game was launched in 2018 by Spribe OÜ, an Estonian iGaming casino company. Spribe has partnerships with WWE and UFC. The company’s revenue surged from 4.1 million EUR to 40 million EUR — a tenfold increase— between 2021 and 2023.
In India, it works in a slightly different way. Decode’s investigation revealed that social media platforms have been extensively used to make this illegal betting app visible to vulnerable users. Meta's ad library exposed a staggering network of 2,000 active advertisements, while YouTube harbored at least 75 channels promoting these gambling prediction schemes, some with follower counts exceeding 33 million. Telegram, meanwhile, has at least 18 groups where scammers promise to double your investment by playing on your behalf.
A former player, identified as S*, revealed the game’s psychological warfare mechanics. “On the first attempt, the jet flies anywhere between 2x to 20x. But on the second attempt, it is likely to crash,” he said.
The Scam: Telegram Hacks and Predictors
When Swain was trying to recover the lost money, he landed on an even more treacherous landscape: a Telegram prediction group with over 12,000 members, mostly from India. This was one of the hundreds of digital hunting groups that claimed to provide guaranteed winning "signals" or predictions for the Aviator game.
Swain was told he could recover 15,000 rupees by investing just 5,000—a lifeline that was another carefully laid trap. There was no room for doubt. The channel had hundreds of testimonials and screenshots from people who had won and recovered their money.
After seemingly winning 20,000, he was asked to invest another 15,000, a classic bait-and-switch technique that has devastated countless lives.
“At that point, I told them that I don't want to put in more money. I had run out of money,” Swain recalled.
He asked the agents to give him his winning share, but they turned hostile. They asked him to invest more. The student realised this was a trap. When he threatened to file a police case, the agents told him that he will never get his money back.
The human cost of these digital predators has been heartbreaking in India. A 22-year-old from Bihar died by suicide after losing two lakh rupees. An 18-year-old in Lucknow took his own life after losing his father’s entire savings. Many have fallen into debt traps and even got involved in illegal activities after losing money on the game.
How YouTubers Sell Channel Space
Despite the platform’s strong policies, a wave of deceptive videos promoting the Aviator game has been sweeping across YouTube, luring unsuspecting users into a high-stakes scam. Decode’s investigation revealed a sophisticated scheme that exploits celebrity images, artificial intelligence, and desperate human psychology.
Decode tracked at least 75 YouTube channels with subscribers count between 1 lakh and 3.3 crores who sell spaces on their channel to scammers who post videos on how to hack into the Aviator game to make money. During the course of our reporting, we reached out to YouTube with a detailed list of such channels, the platform responded two days later saying they had taken down multiple content with the help of our leads.
“Our reviews are currently underway. And, to date, we've removed several videos flagged by Alishan Jafri for Boomlive for violating our Sale of illegal or regulated goods or services policy. We’ve strengthened our policies that prohibit content directing viewers to unapproved gambling websites or applications,” the statement from YouTube read.
A typical Aviator scam video follows a distinct pattern. It often begins with an AI-generated voice of a well-known celebrity—most commonly Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan—issuing a seemingly responsible disclaimer. The message warns viewers to gamble wisely, subtly establishing credibility before moving on to the next stage.
There are two primary formats for these scam videos. The first is a short, fast-paced two-minute clip without any human faces, offering vague "hacks" and tips to play Aviator. The second, longer "explainer" videos work as an elaborate lure to entice users into investing and playing the game. The videos rely on misleading thumbnails featuring celebrities like Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav to give the impression of legitimacy. Each of these videos have hundreds of suspicious bot comments that claim to have earned huge profits.
Once these videos have served their purpose, they are quickly deleted within days to avoid scrutiny.
Investigating The YouTube-Telegram Nexus
Our investigation led us to multiple Telegram groups and channels directly linked to the Aviator game. By searching common keywords, we uncovered a network of similar channels promising astronomical financial returns.
One such channel, Aviator India Signals, boasted claims of multiplying money tenfold within 45 minutes. Testimonials flooded the chat, with users vouching for their supposed winnings. The groups’ administrators claimed to have "hacked" the game, offering insider predictions and manipulating outcomes for a price.
In an effort to understand the mechanics of the scam, the reporter posed as a victim trying to recover lost money.
We reached out to the WhatsApp number linked to one such Telegram group where a so-called predictor claimed they could "recover" our losses by hacking the game’s backend. They asked the reporter to invest Rs 5000, which would supposedly be turned into Rs 50,000 within 45 minutes—minus a 25% commission.
The reporter claimed to have already lost Rs 77,000 and couldn't afford more, and probed for other ways to get involved. The scammers immediately pivoted to recruitment, offering a commission-based deal: if we could bring in 5-10 new customers, we would earn a 5-10% cut.
To further investigate and determine the connection between these scammers and YouTube content creators, the reporter pretended to be an Aviator promoter seeking spaces on channels with millions of followers. The reporter contacted the admin of RS Verma Channel (778K subscribers), who admitted to keeping promotional videos live for five days before deleting them. When asked about pricing, he revealed that he charges Rs 17,000 to produce a video. He also claimed that he charges Rs 12,000 for posting a video if we produce it ourselves and send it to him. Our request to connect with these original creators was denied.
When we presented this new information to the scammers, they requested specific YouTube channels to promote their game. However, after a few exchanges, they suddenly stopped responding. In the following week, several scam-related videos vanished from multiple YouTube channels.
We also reached out to a YouTuber with over 1.3 million subscribers, who claimed to have been approached by Telegram scammers last year. The promoters offered him Rs 50,000 per video, but he declined, citing ethical concerns. He shared multiple emails and WhatsApp messages from various groups pushing for fraudulent promotions.
“They approach via email and WhatsApp, asking influencers to promote their videos for money. I can't deceive my audience,” he told Decode.
The Role Of AI Videos And Ads
Decode’s investigation uncovered over 2,000 Meta ads promoting the Aviator game and its "prediction services." Many of these ads used AI-generated videos featuring fake endorsements from celebrities like Shahrukh Khan, Virat Kohli, Mukesh Ambani, and Ratan Tata. Despite repeated debunkings by fact-checkers, these scams persist.
Decode reached out to Meta for a comment, but we haven’t yet received a response from them.
In January 2024, cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar publicly condemned an Aviator ad that misused his face and voice. “These videos are fake,” he tweeted. “It is disturbing to see rampant misuse of technology. Social media platforms need to be alert and responsive to complaints.”
Decode has earlier reported on similar video ads with voice clones of Shah Rukh Khan, Virat Kohli, Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata, Narayana Murthy, Ravish Kumar, and Akshay Kumar among others.
In September 2024, a video of Virat Kohli promoting the Aviator app went viral. Through reverse image search and AI analysis with TrueMedia, BOOM found that the video was fake. In reality, Kohli had featured in an ad promoting Herbalife.
Although the app is unavailable on the Google Play Store and other App stores, its multiple prediction ads run on Meta and YouTube.
Adding another layer to this deception, Decode discovered multiple gaming studios developing Aviator clones. A game developer the reporter spoke to revealed that he receives up to 10 requests daily to build similar games, charging between Rs 9-12 lakh per project.
“The game is designed for people to lose,” he explained. “Even if someone wins, withdrawal is difficult. Most people end up losing much more in subsequent rounds,” he added. “If you're directly paying the agents to play on your behalf, the chances to lose go up even further. Promotion through legitimate channels adds credibility to the scam.”
Blockchain expert Suhail Lone shed light on the deception behind Aviator’s "prediction services." According to him, the game's Random Number Generation (RNG) system ensures outcomes are unpredictable. “The claim that it can be hacked is bogus. Even if true, it's illegal to promote such manipulation,” Lone stated. He also noted that Spribe, the company behind Aviator, does not list India among its permitted markets.
When asked why these scams keep resurfacing, Lone pointed to the ease of setting up new groups. “Even if some get shut down, new ones emerge within minutes. They use data scrapers and aggressive ad campaigns to redirect victims.”
While Google restricts the promotion of gambling apps in India, loopholes allow fraudsters to disguise their content. YouTubers don’t directly advertise gambling apps but instead create “content” that redirects users to Telegram groups, where they are further manipulated.
Though fantasy sports and Rummy ads are permitted in certain Indian states, Google mandates certification for all advertisers. However, as the investigation revealed, the promoters of Aviator bypass these regulations by blending paid promotions with organic content. The result: Hundreds of Indians lose money, every day.