A verified, continuously updated log of real incidents where reports, filings and policies were withdrawn, refunded, corrected or sanctioned because they contained AI fabrications. Every entry is sourced. Nothing here is an opinion.
✓ Every entry verified against a reputable source · logged weekly, never padded.
The register
72
verified incidents across government, the Big Four, the courts and the academic record — and counting.
Latest: High Court of South Africa, Gauteng Division, Johannesburg (Acting Judge Themba Khaba) · 5 days ago
1 in 277
of biomedical papers in early 2026 cites a fabricated reference — a 12× rise in two years.
2023
1 in 2,828
2025
1 in 458
EARLY 2026
1 in 277
▲ The sharp rise began mid-2024, as AI writing tools spread.
Source: The Lancet · Columbia Nursing audit of 97.1M references · May 2026
The scale
It is not happening to amateurs.
Each figure below is a single, sourced fact — not a total. We do not add refunds, fines and contract values together; that would be exactly the kind of unearned number Ukweli exists to catch.
KPMG · Deloitte · EY
Three of the Big Four published reports with AI fabrications — alongside the UK High Court and a national government.
See the register below for each, with sources.
$110,000
The largest single court penalty in the log for one set of fabricated citations — a US federal sanction.
ABA Journal · District of Oregon, May 2026
97.1M references
Audited in the biomedical literature; 1 in 277 papers carries a fabricated reference, up 12× in two years.
The Lancet · Columbia Nursing, May 2026
The register
Every case. Verified. Sourced.
The trend so far · 72 verified incidents by year
LegalGovernmentConsultingAcademicMedia
Verified incidents in the register, stacked by sector. 2026 is year-to-date (dashed). This counts the register itself — densest for recent, English-language cases — not the true global incidence rate (that is the Lancet figure above).
By type & consequence — click a bar to filter
By fabrication type
By consequence
Severity runs low to high: Corrected → Refunded → Withdrawn → Sanctioned. One fabricated citation has been enough to trigger each.
Filter by sector, region, consequence or year — or search. Newest first. Each entry links to its source and has its own permalink.
Is your sector exposed?
Pick your sector to see the verified incidents in your world.
Showing 72 of 72 verified incidents
High Court of South Africa, Gauteng Division, Johannesburg (Acting Judge Themba Khaba)
Legal South Africa
Legal authorities +1
12 tabulated citation discrepancies in a High Court judgment, including a case that does not exist
On appeal, the full bench tabulated 12 numbered citation discrepancies in the Acting Judge's judgment (the judgment text and the reporting both refer to "11 discrepancies"). The standout is "Lubbe v Volkswagon SA [2023] 4 All SA 289 (C)" — "This case does not exist" — relied on in five paragraphs: [75], [92], [93], [108] and [112]. Others include a citation belonging to an unrelated case (Myeni given SA Express Ltd v Bagport's citation; MEC for Health Eastern Cape v Mkhintha given Notshokovu v S's), quotes attributed to a correctly named case that in fact come from a different, uncited judgment, and a citation that does not exist at all (Premier for the Province of Gauteng [2020] 4 All SA 559 (SCA)). The discrepancies were identified by the appellant's legal team, agreed by the respondent's, independently confirmed by the senior librarian of the Johannesburg Society of Advocates, and separately verified by a court researcher before the hearing. Critically, the judgment recorded in some instances that junior counsel Ms K Mitchell had supplied references she had never provided: "The errors can therefore not be attributed to counsel."
Citation Verification: a cited authority that does not exist, relied on in five paragraphs of a judgment, plus quotations attributed to correctly named cases that come from different, uncited judgments. Every discrepancy was found by checking the citations against the record — the court used a librarian and a researcher to do what an existence check does.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
US District Court, Western District of Washington (Judge Tiffany M. Cartwright)
Legal United States
Legal authorities +2
Dozens of false citations across 4 briefs and 2 expert reports
Dozens of inaccurate factual and legal citations across at least five filings — four briefs and two expert reports — including citations to nonexistent sources and fictitious quotations attributed to real, existing sources. Counsel generated a formatted citation table using Claude and ChatGPT and supplied the same AI-generated table to both testifying experts as an appendix; neither expert caught the errors before signing.
Citation Verification: nonexistent authorities cited as controlling. Fact-Checking: fictitious quotations attributed to real sources. Statistical Claim Audit: an AI-generated citation table propagated into two independent expert reports.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
US Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of Texas
Legal United States
Legal authorities +1
Sanctioned over fabrications produced with a paid legal-research AI
PER THE COURT'S ORDER AS PUBLISHED BY THE AI HALLUCINATION CASES DATABASE, AND NOT CORROBORATED BY ANY INDEPENDENT REPORT AS AT 5 AUGUST 2026: motions to quash filed by counsel for the petitioning creditors contained multiple fabricated quotations, citations to non-existent authority, and misleading descriptions of real authority. Counsel — a sole practitioner — said he had not used ChatGPT but had used the generative-AI feature in Westlaw's 'Precision' product; the court rejected his argument that a legal AI tool should be treated more leniently than a consumer one.
Citation Verification: motions contained fabricated quotations and citations to authority that does not exist. The sanction amount and the identification of the AI tool are attributed to the court's order as published by a third-party database and are not independently corroborated.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
UK Home Office
Government United Kingdom
Sources & experts +1
An asylum refusal built on a policy document that does not exist
The Home Office refused a Moroccan woman's asylum claim citing a country policy and information note (CPIN) on Morocco dated July 2021 as authority that Morocco would be safe for her return. The Upper Tribunal could not locate the document and the Home Office's own country policy and information team was unable to confirm it existed; the judge held "it appears that no such CPIN has ever existed." No CPIN on Morocco has been published since 2017. The First-tier Tribunal had already dismissed her appeal relying on the same non-existent document. Asked to produce it, the Home Office first sent a link to an archive where it could not be found, then produced a different, unpublished internal guidance document (a country information note, or CIN) that had never been disclosed to the court — and which does not conclude Morocco is safe for the forcible return of women in her position, recording instead that 40,000 child marriages were granted by exemption in 2018 (one-fifth of all marriages that year) and that Moroccan law does not explicitly criminalise marital rape.
Citation Verification: a government decision letter cites an official policy document that does not exist, and the citation survived into a tribunal decision that relied on it. Existence-checking the cited source is the entire check.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Tribunal Superior de Xustiza de Galicia (Sala do Social, A Coruña)
Legal Spain
Legal authorities +1
24 of 32 citations (75%) fabricated
Of 32 case citations in the appeal, 24 (75%) were fabricated or wrong — non-existent Supreme Court, Constitutional Court and Court of Justice of the EU rulings, several with invented verbatim quotations, all verified false against the CENDOJ case database. The lawyer used a free generative-AI tool without verification and admitted responsibility. Independently corroborated 5 Aug 2026 by four Spanish outlets, all reporting 24 fabricated references and the EUR1,800 fine; Iberley additionally confirms the auto reference (Auto n. 00061/2026, A Coruna, 7 July 2026, recurso de suplicacion 5472/2025) and the 75% proportion. The raw total of 32 is stated in the auto and follows arithmetically from the two corroborated figures.
Citation Verification: 24 of 32 cited authorities do not exist or do not match the quoted text; verified false against CENDOJ.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Supreme Court of India
Legal India
Legal authorities +1
3 of 6 cited precedents did not exist
Of six precedents relied on by the NCLT, three did not exist and three others carried invented paragraphs or an incorrect case title; an affidavit confirmed the authorities could not be traced in any recognised legal database.
Citation Verification: adjudication rested on precedents that do not exist in any legal database.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Labour Court of South Africa, Durban; fabrications originated with the chairperson of a Matjhabeng Local Municipality internal disciplinary hearing
Legal South Africa
Legal authorities
An adjudicator's own ruling cited authorities that do not exist
The chairperson of an internal disciplinary hearing issued a ruling citing case authorities that do not exist. This is established from the primary record: the Gauteng High Court, in FJL v TGO (2025/220239, 31 July 2026, reportable), cites the case at footnote 9 as (2026/157576) [2026] ZALCD 30 and records at paragraph [40] that a stay was granted where "rulings made by a disciplinary chairperson (not a Judge or Acting Judge) citing case authorities which did not exist" were under challenge. PER CLIFFE DEKKER HOFMEYR'S EMPLOYMENT LAW ALERT OF 27 JULY 2026, AND NOT YET CHECKED AGAINST THE JUDGMENT ITSELF: the ruling relied on four authorities, of which only one existed and supported the proposition cited, two did not exist at all, and a fourth was a real decision that did not address the interpretation of collective agreements as claimed. Those figures are single-sourced to that alert and are attributed rather than asserted.
Citation Verification: cited authorities that do not exist, in the reasoning of the decision-maker rather than in a party's submissions. The count of affected authorities is attributed to a law-firm alert and is not yet verified against the judgment.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
KPMG
Consulting United Kingdom
References & studies +1
40 of 45 citations fabricated
Of 45 citations, only 5 pointed to real, intact sources; 40 of 45 titles were fabricated. Case studies about UBS, the UK NHS, Swiss Federal Railways and Transport for London were disputed as inaccurate by the named organisations.
Fact-Checking: case studies contradicted by the named parties (Swiss Federal Railways: “not accurate”). Citation Verification: 40 of 45 cited sources unmatched.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
US District Court, Northern District of Mississippi (Judge Sharion Aycock)
Legal United States
Legal authorities
Both sides hallucinated — all 4 attorneys removed
Hallucinated case citations across three briefs filed by both opposing sides in the same matter; the court, not opposing counsel, discovered them. One out-of-state attorney admitted she had filed further pleadings before the same court containing undiscovered fictitious citations, and had continued citing hallucinated cases in other jurisdictions after the problem surfaced. The order does not state a total citation count.
Citation Verification: nonexistent authorities cited by opposing parties in the same proceeding; neither adversarial review nor local-counsel signature caught them.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Oregon Supreme Court
Legal United States
Legal authorities +1
First state-Supreme-Court action
Citations to prior cases that do not exist in the Oregon Appellate Reports or the Oregon Reports, plus fabricated quotes; a later declaration cited at least four more non-existent cases.
Citation Verification: cited authorities could not be matched to real cases.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department
Legal United States
Legal authorities +1
$10,500 sanction
The brief cited several non-existent cases, included fictitious purported Court of Appeals quotations “wholly contrary to actual law,” and misrepresented the holdings of real cases.
Citation Verification: several cited cases are non-existent; quotations fabricated and contrary to law.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Journal of Medical Ethics (BMJ Group)
Academic United Kingdom
References & studies
References that do not exist, plus peer-review manipulation
The journal's investigation found several cited references did not exist. The sole author — confirmed to be a high-school student (affiliation listed as Shrewsbury Public Schools, Massachusetts) — used generative AI to "identify and understand referenced sources" and did not verify the references before submission. The retraction notice also cites "evidence of peer review manipulation."
Citation Verification: several cited references do not exist; author-confirmed use of generative AI without verification.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Berlingske
Media Denmark
Quotes +1
Invented professor and fabricated quotes in a national daily
An internal AI tool used to summarise expert quotes was run without the source material and invented both quotations and people — including a non-existent DTU technology professor, 'Anne Kjær Nielsen.' Fabricated quotes were attributed to sources who do not exist. Flagged by a reporter at Dagbladet Information.
Citation Verification: quotations and a named expert source are unverifiable and do not exist.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Steven Rosenbaum (author)
Media United States
Quotes +1
Half-a-dozen-plus fabricated quotes in a book about AI and truth
A New York Times review found more than half a dozen misattributed or fabricated quotes. One attributed to tech journalist Kara Swisher ("the most sophisticated AI language model is like a mirror...") was disowned by her, who said she "never said that"; further misattributed quotes involved other named figures. The author disclosed using ChatGPT and Claude during research, writing and editing.
Citation Verification: load-bearing quotations attributed to named real sources are AI-fabricated; subjects confirm they never said the words.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
US District Court, Eastern District of North Carolina (Magistrate Judge Robert T. Numbers II) / US Department of Justice
Legal United States
Quotes +1
US federal prosecutor fired over an AI-fabricated filing
A brief the federal prosecutor drafted with a generative-AI tool and filed without verifying contained fabricated quotations, misstatements of case holdings, and fabricated regulatory language. The pro se plaintiff — a retired military lawyer — noticed the brief did not read like the sources it cited.
Citation Verification: ≥6 academic citations matched no real publication (fabricated journals / articles never published).
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Alabama Supreme Court
Legal United States
Legal authorities
Appeal dismissed; $17,200 in costs
Numerous invalid, irrelevant and outright fabricated citations, many AI-generated and to cases that do not exist; the apologising footnote cited two further non-existent cases.
Citation Verification: numerous citations to non-existent cases, including two more in the apology footnote.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Nebraska Supreme Court
Legal United States
Legal authorities +1
First US attorney suspended from practice over AI filings
A divorce-appeal brief the court found "potentially AI-generated" was "filled with fictitious cases … and fictitious quotations from statutes." The court listed 20 examples of fictional quotes, incorrect case numbers, or misrepresented holdings, including a wholly fictitious 2019 case, Kennedy v. Kennedy, cited with fabricated quotations. By opposing counsel's count, 57 of 63 references in the brief were defective.
Citation Verification: at least 20 citations fabricated or misrepresented, incl. a wholly fictitious case with fabricated quotations.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
The New York Times
Media United States
Quotes
An AI summary published as a direct quote
A direct quotation attributed to Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was, per the Times' own editor's note, an AI-generated summary of his views that the AI tool rendered as a verbatim quotation. Poilievre never said the quoted words; the note stated the reporter "should have checked the accuracy of what the A.I. tool returned."
Citation Verification: a load-bearing direct quotation attributed to a named figure is AI-generated and was never said.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Mediahuis (journalist Peter Vandermeersch)
Media Netherlands
Quotes +1
Fabricated quotes in 15 of 53 posts
In 15 of 53 blog posts, quotes were attributed to named individuals and to publications where they could not be found; seven named individuals confirmed they never made the statements — dozens of fabricated quotes in total.
Citation Verification: dozens of quotations attributed to named people and publications are unverifiable; seven named subjects deny saying them.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Tribunal Superior do Trabalho (TST — Brazil)
Legal Brazil
Legal authorities +1
Fake precedents attributed to real ministers
Cited non-existent precedents, including ones falsely attributed to a sitting and a retired Minister (one dated after his retirement); none existed in the TST system.
Citation Verification: 24+ citations incorrect, misrepresented or non-existent.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
West Midlands Police
Government United Kingdom
Claims & data +1
One fictitious fixture, used to classify away fans as high-risk
Microsoft Copilot generated a fixture between Maccabi Tel Aviv and West Ham that never took place; the non-existent match was used in the force's intelligence report as evidence that Maccabi fans posed an unusual risk. A 10 October 2025 reply from the operation's Gold Commander carried further AI-sourced claims about the Amsterdam disorder — that 2,000 Dutch police had been deployed, that “people were thrown into the river”, and that the disorder was “well organised and targeted towards Muslim communities”.
Fact-Checking: a wholly fabricated event asserted as fact in an operational decision document. Statistical Claim Audit: an unsourced quantitative claim carried forward without attribution or verification.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Corte Suprema de Justicia de Colombia
Legal Colombia
Legal authorities
~US$6,000 fine for fabricated authorities
A legal appeal contained non-existent legal provisions and precedents generated by an AI tool.
Citation Verification: a load-bearing direct quotation is attributed to a named source with no verifiable transcript; the words trace to an AI paraphrase.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Intensive Care Medicine (Springer)
Academic Netherlands
References & studies
Fake reference to its own journal
Among 15 references, a fabricated citation to the very journal the letter appeared in (a non-existent self-reference).
Citation Verification: fabricated citations across three separate briefs.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Journal of the Law Society of Scotland
Media United Kingdom
Sources & experts +1
Feature pulled over phantom sources and fabricated quotes
Quotes falsely attributed to interviewees the reporter could not produce. On the balance of the evidence the editor concluded the quotations were "disputed and otherwise problematic," falsely attributed, and likely fabricated, in breach of the Journal's editorial guidelines and the author's contractual obligations.
Citation Verification: 21 of 23 quoted passages fabricated across four AI tools.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
General Division of the High Court of Singapore (Assistant Registrar Tan Yu Qing)
Legal Singapore
Legal authorities
S$800 personal costs — Singapore's first AI-citation sanction
Written submissions filed 1 June 2025 cited a case — fabricated name and citation, generated by a generative-AI tool used by a junior lawyer — for the proposition that ad hoc loans between acquaintances are not moneylending. The authority was not in the bundle and could not be traced. Counsel first described it as a clerical error and admitted the citation was fictitious, and that AI had been used, only when pressed by the court.
Citation Verification: a cited authority was fabricated by generative AI and does not exist.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Business Insider
Media United States
Sources & experts +1
40+ essays pulled
Essays whose named subjects, anecdotes and quoted details could not be verified — part of a fabricated-contributor network, with details contradicting between pieces.
Citation Verification: named subjects and attributed quotes are unverifiable and internally contradictory across pieces.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Government of Newfoundland & Labrador — Education Accord NL
Government Canada
References & studies
15+ fake sources in a 10-year plan
At least 15 citations to non-existent journal articles, including a reference to a 2008 NFB film the NFB confirms does not exist (traced to a style guide's fictitious examples).
Citation Verification: authorities across three AI-assisted motions were non-existent or misquoted with wrong dockets.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Wired (Condé Nast)
Media United States
Sources & experts +1
Phantom expert, no fact-check
Quotes from sources who do not appear to exist (e.g. 'Jessica Hu, an ordained officiant in Chicago'), supplied by a fictitious freelancer whose copy appears AI-generated.
Citation Verification: cited jurisprudence and doctrine were non-existent or erroneous; the court found them AI-fabricated.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
US District Court, District of Minnesota
Academic United States
References & studies
2 of 15 citations fabricated
Of 15 citations in a misinformation expert's declaration, at least two referenced academic articles that do not exist — admitted ChatGPT hallucinations.
Citation Verification: cited non-existent cases and fabricated quotations.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
Parliament of Australia — Senate consulting-services inquiry
Government Australia
Claims & data
Bard-fabricated allegations vs the Big Four
Multiple fictitious case studies of Big Four wrongdoing generated by Google Bard (false NAB, Probuild, Patisserie Valerie, Westpac claims) — none occurred.
Citation Verification: every quotation attributed to the named subject is AI-fabricated; no interview was ever conducted.
Illustrative — how Ukweli would flag this against the public record. Not a live analysis.
No incidents match those filters.
What the data shows
Four things the register makes plain.
Not a list of anecdotes — a pattern. These are read straight off the verified incidents below and update as the register grows.
3 → 31
The pace is rising.
Logged incidents climbed from 3 in 2023 to 31 in 2025, with 31 already logged in the first 8 months of 2026. The independent rate agrees: the Lancet finds fabricated references up a 12-fold rise in two years.
31
It is not just lawyers.
The courtroom cases are the famous ones — but beyond the 41 of those, 31 more incidents hit the Big Four (KPMG, Deloitte, EY), national governments, peer-reviewed journals and major newsrooms, across 22 countries. No corner of professional writing is exempt.
39
The consequences are real.
39 of 72 incidents ended in a formal sanction and 20 documents were withdrawn outright. Penalties run up to a $110,000 court fine, suspended law licences and struck filings.
1 pattern
It looks exactly right.
Every case is the same defect: a confident, plausible citation, source or quote that a professional read, trusted and signed off — and that no human reviewer caught until after it was published.
Where Ukweli comes in
That last pattern is the whole point. Every entry in this register began as a reference that passed human review and failed only in public. That single class of defect — fabricated or unverifiable citations, sources, quotes and claims — is exactly what Ukweli is built to catch before a document leaves your hands. It reads every citation and claim, not just the suspicious ones, and tells you plainly whether to hold, review or clear. We keep this register because it is the public evidence for the problem Ukweli works on.
Every incident is confirmed against at least one reputable source — mainstream news, a legal or official record, or the organisation itself. If it cannot be verified, it is not listed. An empty week is an honest week.
What counts
Documents withdrawn, refunded, corrected, retracted or sanctioned specifically because of AI-generated, fabricated or hallucinated citations or sources. Document-authenticity and version-integrity disputes are tracked separately, not folded in.
The full register is published as a single JSON file under a
Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licence. You can
reuse it commercially, redistribute it and build on it — including for
machine-readable and AI use — provided you attribute it. There is no key, no
sign-up and no rate limit.
A single JSON document: a meta block and an incidents array. It is
rewritten every time the register is published, so the URL is stable and the contents are
current. meta.last_updated and meta.record_count tell you which
version you have.
What is in a record
Each incident carries what happened (org, country,
sector, doc_type, what_fabricated), what it cost
(consequence_type, consequence_detail), when
(incident_date with an explicit date_precision, plus
date_logged), and the receipts (source_urls).
Every field is documented inside the file itself,
in meta.fields — read it there rather than from any summary, including this
one. meta.verification_rule states the standard every entry had to meet.
Two things to read before you use it
Dates carry their own precision. Where a source
gave only a month or a year, date_precision says so. Treat
incident_date as accurate only to that precision — do not render it as a
day.
This is a register, not a survey. It counts
incidents that were reported and could be verified, so it is a floor and not a rate. It cannot
tell you what share of all documents contain fabrications, and nothing here should be
presented as though it can.
How to attribute it
Use this line, or something close to it:
“Ukweli Integrity Watch, The Orkestra, CC BY 4.0
— ukweli.io/integrity”
Please link to ukweli.io/integrity,
and cite the individual incident page where you are relying on a single record — each one
has its own permanent URL and lists its sources in full. If you publish something built on
this data, we would like to see it: hello@ukweli.io.
The two-second test
Could you spot the fabricated citation?
Three citations pulled from real documents. One checks out. One cites a law that no longer exists. One was simply made up. Reveal what Ukweli sees in each.
“… in accordance with the Stock Exchange Control Act, 1985 (as amended).”
From a corporate governance document
HOLD
Citation check: this Act was repealed and replaced by the Financial Markets Act 19 of 2012. It is cited as if it were current law.
Public legal record · South African Financial Markets Act 19 of 2012
“Fabricated citations: an audit across 2.5 million biomedical papers. The Lancet (2026).”
From a research summary
VERIFIED
Citation check: matches a real, indexed publication. This one is sound — Ukweli clears what is genuine.
Most readers can’t tell — the fabrications look exactly like the real ones. Ukweli reads every citation, not just the suspicious ones. Integrify your document →
Before you publish
Don't become an entry.
Ukweli checks a document's claims and citations before it leaves your hands — and tells you plainly whether to hold, review, or clear it. Ukweli it first.