Rakesh Bhuckory, Chief of Staff of the PMO: “WhatsApp exchanges are manufactured by artificial intelligence”

The day after Pravind Jugnauth's statements to Flacq, the Chief of Staff of the PMO, Rakesh Bhuckory, chose to respond publicly. Thursday, on the set of Info Soirée Première Part, he rejected the allegations of conspiracy targeting the former Prime Minister in the MMG affair and maintains that the WhatsApp exchanges attributed to him are alleged messages generated using artificial intelligence.

The case originated in the dissemination, on Saturday July 25, of screenshots published within a WhatsApp group entitled “Public Interest”. These images, which then circulated on different platforms, show what is presented as a conversation between two users, one of whom is said to be using a phone number attributed to Rakesh Bhuckory.

The content of these exchanges quickly fueled the controversy. Among the messages appearing in the screenshots, we can read: “He should have a charge that will help us drag it for several months”, “We can try a Trojan Horse tactic – no arrest next week, only questioning and then call him again in early August now to have an arrest” or even “Arrest him after the meeting? To destroy their pathetic argument of funny coincidence”. These conversations suggest the existence of a strategy targeting former Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth in the context of the MMG affair. At this point, the authenticity of these screenshots has not been established.

Facing our colleague Dinesh Seeharry, Rakesh Bhuckory returned to the chronology of events. He claims to have been alerted on Saturday by two calls from a journalist informing him of the existence of these exchanges. “While reading the messages, I discovered that my phone number appeared in these conversations. It was both shocking and disturbing. To me, this demonstrates that there is malicious intent behind this fabrication,” he said.

According to him, he immediately informed the Prime Minister's Office, before going to the Central Barracks in the evening to take a statement. He explains that he found it necessary to contact the police because the screenshots also referred to the Financial Crimes Commission (FCC) as well as the PMO.

Beyond his denials, Rakesh Bhuckory wanted to convince. For nearly thirty minutes, he performed a live demonstration to illustrate, according to him, the ease with which artificial intelligence tools can be used to create conversations presented as authentic. Supporting screenshots, he explained that he asked ChatGPT to replace the phone numbers appearing in a conversation with those of different personalities. “I asked the tool to replace the numbers with those of certain members of the press, then with that of Maneesh Gobin. If anyone has the number of the former Prime Minister, I could do exactly the same demonstration.