In what can only be described as the corporate version of “Sorry, wrong number,” prominent entrepreneur Parminder Singh found himself unwittingly cast as the face of financial villainy last week — all because apparently some folks at a major financial news outlet, Moneycontrol, still think all Sikh men look alike.
Welcome to 2025, where AI can write your college thesis, cars can drive themselves across the country, but media houses still can’t differentiate between two entirely unrelated turban-wearing businessmen.
The Mistaken Identity Saga Nobody Ordered
Picture this: You’re just days away from launching your shiny new AI venture that promises to teach leaders how to use artificial intelligence responsibly. Your LinkedIn is glistening, your funding secured, your demo day outfit ironed.
Then your phone buzzes.
“Hi Parry, do you know why they put your photo with this news?”
What follows is the kind of stomach-drop usually reserved for finding out you’ve been charged twice for the same coffee or discovering your Spotify playlist has been overtaken by your roommate’s EDM phase.
Singh clicked the link — and there it was. His face, front and center on Moneycontrol, India’s largest financial website, next to a headline about money laundering involving Gensol — a company he has exactly zero ties to. Not a shareholder, not an employee, not even a guy who liked one of their posts.
THE DAY MY FACE BECAME THE FACE OF A FINANCIAL SCANDAL
Last week, my phone buzzed:
“Hi Parry, do you know why they put your photo with this news?”
I clicked the link – and my stomach dropped.There it was: my picture, plastered across India’s largest financial website, above a… pic.twitter.com/O6T5bA3J8M
— Parminder Singh (@parrysingh) May 4, 2025
“This wasn’t a Black Mirror episode,” Singh tweeted. “This was my real life.”
When You Google Yourself and It Feels Like a Crime Scene
With “trembling fingers,” Singh Googled himself. The horror deepened. His photo was now algorithmically mashed next to phrases like “fraud” and “money laundering.”
It’s like searching for your own name and finding out you’ve apparently been running a Ponzi scheme in your spare time.
For the record, the scandal involved Gensol Engineering Ltd. and its promoters, the Jaggi brothers, who were being raided by the Enforcement Directorate. Serious stuff. But Singh? He just happened to be a different Sikh man with a beard. Because apparently, that’s all the editorial team needed to go on.
“The Internet Never Forgets” — And Neither Will Singh’s Therapist
Singh promptly raised the alarm on X (formerly Twitter), and his followers mobilized like caffeine-fueled Avengers. The result? A correction.
But not before three whole hours passed. Three hours in which Singh’s face was shared, cached, and potentially immortalized in group chats, Slack threads, and WhatsApp forwards across the financial world.
“In that time, the image must have got screenshotted and shared,” Singh wrote. “The internet never forgets.”
Naturally, the next day, someone in his global entrepreneurs’ group shared the image with the caption: “Parry, you’re both famous, and now infamous!”
Nothing like being meme-ified in your own professional circle.
What Went Wrong? A Case Study in Human-AI Tag-Team Failure
To his credit, Singh didn’t immediately jump to outrage. He speculated thoughtfully:
- *Theory 1*: Poor tech implementation. Singh’s face had previously been used by the publication in other articles. If they’d properly meta-tagged him, the CMS should’ve flagged this.
- *Theory 2*: Over-reliance on automation. As Singh puts it, “As systems get smarter, humans tend to check out. We lose situational awareness.”
It’s the digital version of falling asleep at the wheel — except the wheel is a CMS, and the crash is someone’s reputation.
Maybe someone just dropped the image into the article and hit publish without thinking. Because, hey, it’s not like reputation damage can cause… oh, we don’t know, career-altering consequences or anything.
The Irony? So Delicious It Should Be Served With Chutney
Here comes the universe flexing its dark sense of humor.
Singh wasn’t just launching any startup. He was launching *ClayboxAI* — a platform specifically designed to help companies build AI fluency, navigate the ethics of artificial intelligence, and avoid exactly the kind of mistake that just happened to him.
Yes. The guy building a solution to prevent misuses of AI became the textbook example of AI going wrong.
“Maybe the publication should sign up for our AI bootcamp,” Singh tweeted. “I’ve got a very personal example to kick things off with.”
The Other Casualty: The Real Criminals’ Spotlight Moment
Let’s spare a moment for the actual alleged fraudsters — the Jaggi brothers of Gensol. All their hard work running afoul of the law, and someone else got the glory.
“We worked hard for this negative press,” they might be thinking. “Now this AI guy is stealing our thunder?”
(Just to clarify: The Peak View Stories does not endorse financial crime. But if you’re gonna do it, at least get properly identified for it.)
The Real Question: Are We Outsourcing Our Thinking to Machines?
Singh’s ordeal raises a sobering question: As we race toward AI everything, are we slowly ejecting ourselves from the Cognition Loop?
Machines are efficient. But they don’t ask questions. They don’t pause and go, “Wait, does this guy actually look like the fraudster?”
The problem isn’t that tech is making decisions. The problem is we’re letting it do so without oversight, and sometimes, without even glancing at the output before slapping it on a homepage.
Singh said it best: “Master Artificial Intelligence to your advantage, without surrendering real intelligence.”
What Now?
Moneycontrol has quietly removed the image. No apology, no explanation. The damage? Still potentially floating around the web, one misattributed screenshot away from resurfacing during Singh’s next investor pitch.
ClayboxAI is moving forward. Singh is moving forward. But the rest of us might want to hit pause and reflect.
Because if the people building the future of AI can get dragged into scandals they had nothing to do with, what chance do the rest of us have?
Maybe it’s time to watermark our profile pics with: “NOT A WHITE-COLLAR CRIMINAL. JUST A GUY WHO LIKES AI.”
As AI keeps getting smarter, and humans… well, don’t, The Peak View Stories will be here — fact-checking the chaos, laughing at the absurdity, and making sure no one else gets accidentally promoted to Fraud CEO of the Week.
Because in a world where your face can commit financial crimes without your consent, staying informed (and entertained) isn’t just smart — it’s self-defense.
Disclaimer: The Peak View Stories delivers real news with a punch of humor and satire, without twisting the facts. Parminder Singh is a real entrepreneur who was mistakenly identified in Moneycontrol’s coverage of the Gensol money laundering case. The alleged financial crimes involving Gensol’s promoters are under real investigation. The absurdity of mistaking one Sikh entrepreneur for another is, tragically, also very real.