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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Crime & justice fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about crime & justice. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

6,833 published reviews in this topic

dpa Deutsche Presse-AgenturCrime & justice

In Dortmund wurde ein achtjähriges Mädchen entführt, die Polizei bittet um Hinweise.

Publisher’s rating: Die Geschichte ist erfunden. Das bestätigt die Polizei Dortmund. Die Fotos wurden aus verschiedenen Kriminalfällen zusammengestückelt.

The claim concerned a Facebook post alleging that an eight-year-old girl had been kidnapped in Dortmund and asking users to help find the supposed perpetrator. The investigation says the post linked to a counterfeit Facebook page, rather than providing evidence of a real case; that page also described a kidnapped child and a suspect still at large. The review notes inconsistencies between the suspect images in the post and on the counterfeit page, including a different man and a different setting. (“Aktuell etwa soll ein achtjähriges Mädchen in Dortmund entführt worden sein. User werden sogar aufgefordert, bei der Suche nach dem Täter zu helfen.”; “Klickt man auf den Link im Facebook-Post, so gelangt man zu einer nachgeahmten Facebook-Seite - bereits das erste Indiz für eine Fälschung.”; “Es ist ein anderer Mann als im Facebook-Posting, auch unterscheiden sich Szenerie und Umgebung.”) The review traces the post’s images to unrelated incidents. The child’s photograph showed a seven-year-old reported missing in Texas in December 2022 and later found dead. The drawn suspect image was a police sketch connected to the 2009 murder of a 73-year-old woman in Bavaria. The purported kidnapping image’s origin could not be determined, but the review says it had been reused in other supposed kidnapping stories. (“Es zeigt ein siebenjähriges Mädchen, das im Dezember 2022 im US-Bundesstaat Texas als vermisst gemeldet und wenig später tot aufgefunden wurde.”; “Es ist das Phantombild eines Mannes, der im Verdacht steht, im Juni 2009 in Bayern eine 73-Jährige ermordet zu haben.”; “Der Ursprung dieses Fotos lässt sich nicht eindeutig klären, ein alter Hut ist es aber allemal.”) The decisive local check was with Dortmund police: the review reports that there had been no related missing-person alerts among the department’s press releases since October 2023, and that, when asked by dpa in December 2023, the police said there was no real case. Together with the image provenance and the counterfeit page, this evidence contradicts the claimed Dortmund kidnapping. The review also describes the page’s video login prompt as consistent with an apparent effort to collect users’ personal information. (“Seit Oktober 2023 finden sich unter den Presseaussendungen der Polizei Dortmund keine Fahndungen im Zusammenhang mit der Entführung eines Mädchens.”; “Auf Nachfrage der Deutschen Presse-Agentur teilte die Behörde im Dezember 2023 mit: Es handle sich um keinen realen Fall.”; “Versucht man das entsprechende Video abzuspielen, erscheint die Aufforderung, sich anzumelden.”)

youturnCrime & justice

ஒரு முஸ்லீம் இளைஞரிடம் போக்குவரத்து காவல் காவித்துறையே வலுக்கட்டாயமாக கைதுப்பாக்கியை கொடுத்து குற்றவாளியாக்கி கைது செய்கிறார்கள் , இதைப் பற்றி பேச பாஜக முஸ்லிம் தலைவர்களுக்கு தைரியம் இருக்கிறதா?

Publisher’s rating: false

dpaCrime & justice

Diese 8-jährigen Mädchen wurden entführt.

Publisher’s rating: Es handelt sich um eine Falschmeldung. Zumindest eines der Fotos wurde KI-generiert. Nichts deutet darauf hin, dass es diese Fälle gibt.

The posts at issue claimed that an eight-year-old girl had been kidnapped; versions differed by the alleged location, and the accompanying pictures were not identical. The review investigated two links carrying this claim and examined the images, the links beneath them, and a video presented as showing a suspect. Its findings do not support the posts’ account of current kidnappings. For the first image, the review says a Google reverse-image search led directly to Generated Photos, a site where AI-generated portraits can be made. It found the blonde, blue-eyed girl pictured in the post on that site. For the second image, the same search also led to Generated Photos, though the exact image was not found there. The review therefore treated AI generation of that second picture as likely, citing its close resemblance to the first image and nearly identical image metadata. These findings undermine the images’ presentation as photographs of actual kidnapping victims. The links provided further reason to distrust the posts: one produced an error, while the other led to a fake Bild Facebook page soliciting help identifying a supposed kidnapper. The attached video would not play without signing in, a method the review describes as commonly used to obtain personal information. The man shown in the video was, however, linked to a real but different event: Polish media reports and a police statement identified the footage as search material concerning an attempted kidnapping in Poznań in 2016. That attempt failed, and the child was reportedly a four-year-old boy, not an eight-year-old girl. The review found no information indicating that the old footage documented the alleged cases in the posts.

Folha de S.PauloCrime & justice

Tweet exibe o que parece ser a publicação de um site a respeito de uma decisão judicial que concedeu liberdade a integrantes da facção criminosa Comando Vermelho e relaciona a soltura à suposta visita da “primeira-dama” do Comando Vermelho ao Ministério da Justiça. A publicação é acompanhada da legenda: “Um governo de bandidos, de mal carácteres (sic), de párias que deviam estar trancados numa cela. Corja. Por isso somos @jairbolsonaro”.

Publisher’s rating: Enganoso

The post presents a judicial decision affecting people accused of belonging to the Comando Vermelho as if it followed visits to Brazil’s Ministry of Justice by Luciane Barbosa Farias, described in the post as the “first lady” of the criminal group. The review says that connection is misleading: the judge’s decision was issued on February 23, while Farias visited the ministry on March 16 and May 2. The sequence of dates does not support the post’s implication that her visits prompted the decision. The decision concerned 45 suspects in Mato Grosso. The judge ordered the removal of electronic ankle monitors for 38 and the release of seven others, according to the review. It says some suspects had been imprisoned or subject to precautionary measures since 2018, and others had worn ankle monitors since 2019. The review identifies the absence of sentences—not the ministry visits—as the reason for the decision. The review quotes the judge explaining that the accused had been subject to judicial orders for more than four years and that the complexity of the case meant preparing the sentence would take time. It also says the judge cited the constitutional right to a reasonable duration of proceedings. This provides the stated judicial rationale and context for the decision, distinct from the later visits invoked by the post.

Vera FilesCrime & justice

Walang hurisdiksyon ang International Criminal Court na imbestigahan ang mga pagpatay na may kinalaman sa droga noong administrasyong Duterte dahil gumagana ang sistema ng hudikatura ng bansa.

Publisher’s rating: Nakapanlilinlang

Related reporting describes a later ICC decision on the same jurisdictional dispute involving Rodrigo Duterte and the alleged crimes against humanity linked to his administration’s war on drugs. It reports that the Appeals Chamber rejected all four grounds of Duterte’s appeal and confirmed the earlier decision rejecting his jurisdictional challenge. The excerpt says the earlier decision found that the prosecutor’s preliminary examination began before the Philippines formally notified the court of its withdrawal from the Rome Statute. This later reporting is relevant to the claim that the ICC had no jurisdiction, but it does not assess the claim’s stated reason—that the Philippine judicial system was functioning. Nor does the excerpt provide the fact-check’s original investigation or its supporting evidence. It therefore documents a subsequent legal ruling, rather than establishing what the original review examined or independently resolving every basis for the claim.