I don't know where to start with this, so let's begin with a random account from the group. Meet @hiratahir, a young girl from Pakistan who was onboarded in late March this year by her "good" friend of five years. You can read her intro post for more info.
She seems to have an interest in creative arts like drawing, jewellery making, and occasionally cooking. She likes drawing and sketching this much that her second post was this little piece of hand-drawn artwork of a doll.
Here are some of the steps she showed while making that artwork.
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Now, I want you to focus on the line art. Because she's about to surprise us all with her rapid improvements in that skill.
Let me show you the post she shared just a week after the one above.
Wow! I'm impressed with how much her skills improved in a week. Or perhaps this is because she used a digital medium this time.
If you look at this post carefully, observing each step, you'll get the whole story (though I'll be skipping a few steps).
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| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
There are so many things indicating this wasn't drawn by the same author without the help of assistive tools:
No reference picture mentioned or sourced.
Line art starts from facial features in the digital artwork, while in the hand-drawn one, they're the last to be drawn. (I'd draw those details last too, unless I was just tracing from somewhere and knew the exact proportions.)
Notice the gaps in the hair in step 2; the lines stop exactly where the horns and other features will be drawn. This kind of precision is only possible if you're tracing the line art one-to-one.
Notice the coloring process as well; the artist makes the tiniest details in the eyes, like reflections and shadows, before moving on to color the base. If you're creating artwork with little to no reference, you'd never do shadows and reflections before laying down the base colors.
Let's assume she improved her skills a lot and became a better artist. But now look at this hand drawn artwork she shared just a week ago on her blog.
The above image is the finished artwork, too. Tell me, do you think they were created by the same person? Notice the line art in this hand-drawn piece: its strokes are nowhere as smooth and naturally flowing as they were in the digital artwork. Notice the details in the eyes. Very detailed...huh?
This time, she did share her "inspiration," which was a picture from Pinterest. It was more like an almost copy-and-paste of the artwork with minimal changes, but that's a grey area I don't want to delve into.
All I'm saying is these hand-drawn artworks are the real deal, but the digital ones were most likely generated by some tool, likely AI, especially the line art, and then traced over.
Now let's talk about the serious part: the fake identity.
She's using the following profile picture:
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Which is stolen from a random clothing store's post on Pinterest.
She's made 30 posts but has only 18 comments—a strong indication of a fake alt account. Most of those comments are generic, like "Thank you" or "My entry to the Splinterlands contest."
Now, imagine the same behaviour from over 30 accounts, most of which were created in the last six months. The latest one was just created a few days ago.
Favourite Communities: DIY, Hive Learners, Alien Art, Jewellery
@zeeniyanoor
- Fake Profile Picture
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- Similar Style Digital Artworks
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- Obsession with DIY Bracelets
@zeeniyanoor/white-and-pink-beaded-bracelet-c9d833cfcc3e8
@zeeniyanoor/white-and-pink-beaded-bracelet
Favourite Communities: DIY, Hive Learners, Alien Art, Jewellery,
Low Engagement: 14 posts, only 32 comments, mostly "Thanks" and "It looks pretty". Upvoting mostly the users from this same group.
@niya57829
- Likely Fake Profile: This time, the picture is taken from an Instagram account.
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- Similar Style Digital Artworks
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| Post link- Hand Drawn | Post link - Digital |
- Obsession with DIY Bracelets
@niya57829/bracelet-for-my-neighbour-or
@niya57829/diy-bracelet-or-jewelry-145f06f3d79a6
Favourite Communities: DIY, Holozing, Hive Learners, Alien Art, Jewellery
Low Engagement: 14 posts, only 32 comments, mostly "Thanks" and "It looks pretty". Upvoting mostly the users from this group.
Unreferenced Art Theft: There's no mention or reference for this exact artwork, which was copied from Pinterest.
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| Hive Post Link | Pinterest post link |
@toobaa
- Likely Fake Profile: The profile picture is just the back of the head, so it wasn't easy to find out. But she claims she is living in Sri Lanka, but has never shared a single picture of the places or the outside. Always doing the same as the others, which are posting in HiveLearners, DIY Hub, Holozing (before she got Muted there), Jewellery, and Alien Art. The usual communities that most of the users from this group are posting in. Most of them almost exclusively.
- Similar Style Digital & Hand-drawn Artworks
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| Post link- Hand Drawn | Post link - Digital |
This digital artwork post is muted in the @holozing community. They must have figured out it was created using AI or something.
- Obsession with DIY Bracelets
@toobaa/black-and-red-bracelet-for
Favourite Communities: DIY, Holozing, Hive Learners, Alien Art, Jewellery, Needlework Monday
Same Memo with two other accounts in the group. One of them wasn't even onboarded by her, which was a massive breakthrough in this story.
Having multiple accounts isn't easy to maintain, so mistakes like this happen when you reply to someone without switching accounts.
Maybe @livinguktaiwan forgot about this one, but the blockchain remembers everything forever. She was asking @mahi4567, but got a reply from @ayatnoor8090—the very account @mahi4567 onboarded and sent HBD to. How interesting! @mahi4567/introduction-myself
I have so many more examples that you'd get bored. So, let me first show you the entire web of how everyone in this network is connected.
It was a complicated web, so I had to create a relationship chart to illustrate who onboarded whom and if they sent money to each other or a common memo. Hopefully, the chart isn't confusing; I did my best to fit most of the information into one neat visualisation.
The Connections
(Editors on Hive are making it too blurry, so I had to upload it to a third-party file hoster.)
I could keep going with more examples, mentioning each account individually and showing you the source of their profile picture from the internet, their similar interests, their obsession with easy-to-make DIY bracelets and jewellery, their digital artworks, the similar tags, and so much more. But that would be a 20,000-word post, and nobody wants to read something that long. Honestly, I'm too lazy to do all of it. Instead, I'll highlight some of the more important accounts later, along with a few accounts that have slightly different content. But first, let me break down that chart for you.
- @girlinveil isn't connected to anyone on the chart because she has no introduction post and no mention of any onboarder. Also, that account hasn't transferred any funds yet. Her profile picture is taken from a popular Pinterest post, just like most of the others in this group. She also shares the same type of content as the rest, including those perfect line arts and odd steps for creating artwork. Who in their right mind draws a detailed ribcage before drawing a much easier coat?
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| Post Link | Post Link |
- The group consisting of @mahi4567, @ayatnoor8090, @iqrarani, @parishy1232, and @afia3344 appears disconnected from the others. However, they're not. Members from these two groups constantly upvote and comment only on each other's posts, sending welcome messages on intro posts. Most importantly, they engage in the same activities as almost everyone else in the larger group: using fake profile pictures, sharing posts in specific art communities, seeking easy upvotes, creating similar digital artwork, and common things like DIY jewellery.
I was surprised no one had found this connection yet, despite so many commonalities.
- The oldest accounts in this web are @ukrajpoot and @hadianoor. @ukrajpoot's blog used to be full of writing on various topics (many of which looked AI-generated), but it has now mostly shifted to creating and sharing artworks. Splinterlands being splinterlands will give you enough easy upvotes to keep going.
He was downvoted by @themarkymark in the past for creating artwork by tracing Splinterlands cards, simply changing colors, and calling it a work of art. Post here
It's evident from his post that he can't draw; he can just fill in some basic colors. His account also has the least similar content to the rest of the group, and no fake profile either. But, of course, he's part of this abuse, too. He has common memos with his onboardee, @aesthatimahi, who is an active abuser from this group.
Also, he was caught with machine-generated content. I am not sure why @hivewatchers didn't follow up and take any action. Link
The only two accounts with personal blogs and activities that indicate they aren't fake or alt accounts are the oldest ones: @ukrajpoot and @hadianoor. While @ukrajpoot doesn't seem like a creative person to engage in art and crafts, @hadianoor is the perfect candidate. Among all the accounts in the group, she was the one who started sharing these artworks, doodles, and DIY projects as early as March 2024, when only @ukrajpoot was active on the chain.
My theory, which might be incorrect but is based on all the evidence I've seen, is that @hadianoor was the first one to figure out how to get better curation. At first, she started with written posts, but within months, she began experimenting and seeing better rewards for posts with hand-drawn artwork and small DIY projects. Combined with her fine knowledge of drawing and painting, she started using AI to generate unique characters and references that she simply traced over to achieve good results. Probably seeing this, @ukrajpoot experimented with similar content, but it didn't go as well for him, as there were some downvotes because he was just tracing characters and changing colors.
That might have prompted him to create an alt account, @aesthatimahi, with @hadianoor's help. While the HIVE earned from @aesthatimahi went mostly to @ukrajpoot, @hadianoor benefited from her other alts.
I don't think running these many accounts is possible for just two people. I think @hadianoor onboarded some of her friends or family members and taught them the rules of the game. Whatever the case may be, one thing is clear that these accounts are involved in a massive art fraud and have been deceiving communities for months. Many of those accounts are ignored from curations in major communities, but not all.
One more interesting thing about @hadianoor: You can see I didn't mark her as "Fake profile" in my chart. That's because all her Discord and on-chain engagements seem to point to a real identity. But when I dug a bit deeper into her supposed Facebook account, I saw posts dating back 13 years ago. This makes me think the profile picture or the identity she's using is fake, too. Her introduction post on Hive states she was only 19 years old in January 2024. Are you saying she's been posting on Facebook since she was 9 years old?!
Here is the link to that FB account.
Allow me to share the links to all the accounts I found online whose identities were fabricated and used by this group.
This massive influx of fabricated content, stolen or fake identities, and coordinated behaviour—marked by strikingly similar writing styles and interlinked activity—is more than enough to expose the ongoing abuse. And these are only the accounts we’ve identified; there may very well be others operating similarly under the radar.
This kind of behaviour is being empowered by unchecked curation practices across multiple communities, particularly in Hive Learners and by certain Pakistani curators. Such blind support only enables this system to grow stronger.
Stolen content and identity misuse are the very antithesis of what this platform stands for. I urge all stakeholders and curators to immediately blacklist these accounts. You’re encouraged to conduct your own investigations—don’t just take my word for it. I’m just an ordinary user who’s had enough of this manipulation and couldn’t stay silent anymore.
Here is the list of all the accounts I've identified as part of this group. There might be more, so please feel free to suggest any usernames you suspect belong to the same network.
@aesthatimahi, @afia3344, @ainna, @aizalatif, @anusheyahmad, @ashirabdullah, @ayatnoor8090, @azhabmoheed, @baharayy, @fatmabutt, @fizamahrin, @girlinveil, @hadianoor, @hiratahir, @humda, @iqrarani, @kashfa123, @maheenashna, @mahi4567, @manisharajpoot, @mirhaeman1, @moonmahi, @muneebwaleed, @niya57829, @noorchaudhary, @parveenn, @qantasadat, @seharnoshin, @toobaa, @ukrajpoot, @zeeniyanoor
I will also mention some community curators so you get aware of this scam group. @lazy-panda @holozing, @zingtoken, @hivepakistan, @pandex, @splinterlands, @steemmonsters, @bdvoter, @eceny, @diyhub, @dlmmqb, @solumviz, @nkemakonam89, @gwajnberg, @bhattg, @castleberry
Special thanks to those who assisted me in uncovering more accounts.