Fake Fingers Used For Voting Fraud In Lok Sabha Polls? A Fact Check

The ‘fake fingers voting fraud’ claims are false. Several old photos of prosthetic fingers from Japan are viral online with the false claim that they show “fake fingers” being used for voting fraud during the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. BOOM found that the claims are false.

The photos date back to 2013 and show how former and current members of the Yakuza, a Japanese crime syndicate, make use of prosthetic fingers to hide their severed digits. One of the posts on X shows two photos of fake fingers with a text in Telugu that can be translated to English as, “Fake fingers are ready for elections. I think polling officers should also pull their fingers and check before casting their vote.”

The caption with the photo reads, “Fake fingers for fake voters. Getting ready. Ok”.

We ran a reverse image search of the viral photos on Google and found a Chinese news report from 2018 about a similar concern of fake fingers being used in the elections in China. This report carried a feature image resembling the viral photo, and credited it to “akikofujita.com”. Taking a cue from this, we ran a search for “akiko fujita fake fingers”.

The story detailed how Japanese prosthetics maker Shintaro Hayashi began receiving requests from clients that were a part of the Yakuza. The Yakuza has a ritual called ‘yubitsume’, which involves chopping off a member’s fingers for any serious offenses. Hayashi’s clients were mainly former members of the Yakuza who did not want to reveal their past to potential employers, or current members attending social events where their severed fingers would give away their ties with the gang.

Hayashi began making prosthetic fingers for these clients, visuals of which were also shared by ABC News. The report carried a video of Hayashi showing several prosthetic fingers and one of his clients was also seen trying it. The story was originally published on December 16, 2013, and the feature image used in it was an exact match to one of the viral images.