Photographer who clicked Brazilian model's viral photo deactivates Instagram after Rahul Gandhi's presser
The picture was reportedly uploaded by photographer Matheus Ferrero in 2017 on Unsplash who has now deactivated his Instagram account.
A Brazilian model is making headlines in India after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi showed her photo claiming that it was used 22 times in Haryana's voter rolls under different names backing his allegations of “vote chori”.
The woman has been identified as Larissa Nery, a hairdresser who owns a salon in Belo Horizonte. The picture that was made viral by Gandhi's claim was reportedly uploaded by photographer Matheus Ferrero in 2017 on Unsplash who has now deactivated his Instagram account as his social media handle received a barrage of comments from Indian users.
According to a report in The Print, he also deleted Nery's portrait image Unsplash profile.
Rahul Gandhi's allegations of fraud
At a press conference in Delhi, Congress leader said the Brazilian woman's photograph that was used more than 22 times under names such as Sweety, Seema and Saraswati was a “proof” of large-scale electoral fraud that, according to him, cost Congress victory in the 2024 Haryana assembly election.
“Who is this lady? What is her name? Where does she come from? But she votes 22 times in Haryana, at 10 different booths, and has multiple names,” the Congress leader asked in the presser titled ‘H Files’ on Thursday.
Calling it part of a “centralised operation” to manipulate results, Gandhi said the photo appeared multiple times in the voter lists of the Rai assembly constituency of Haryana as he mentioned that the same image could be traced online to “Matheus Ferrero” who later turned out to be the photographer who had first uploaded the image on Unsplash. An independent Google search, shows that Ferrero is a Brazilian photographer whose work, including portraits and fashion images, can be easily found on Unsplash.
Larissa Nery responds
Nery who is the talk of the town in India after Gandhi's presser, took to social media to express her shock saying that picture in question is her's when she was “about 20-years-old.”
A reverse image search identified the woman in the clip as Larissa Nery. She later reposted screenshots showing her video being circulated on ‘X’ to her Instagram story.
Also read: Internet finds ‘Brazilian model’ in Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Seema, Sweety’ claim. She reacts
She jokingly said, “Folks, let me tell you the gossip. You're laughing too much, aren't you? I'm going to tell the gossip. Folks, they are using an old photo of mine. My photo is old, okay? Look, I was very young in the photo. [I must have been] about 20 years old, 18 years old.”
“They are using a photo of mine to run, I don't know if it's an election, something where you have to vote. And in India, they are portraying me as an Indian woman to scam others, folks.”
