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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

dpaCrime & justice

Vrijspraak voor 8 migranten die 15-jarig meisje verkrachtten in Duits stadspark.

Publisher’s rating: Negen van de tien verdachten werden tot gevangenisstraffen veroordeeld. Een dader moet naar de gevangenis, in andere gevallen zijn de straffen voorwaardelijk of wordt later besloten of er sprake zal zijn van een gevangenisstraf.

The claim says eight migrants were acquitted in a case involving the rape of a 15-year-old girl in a German city park. The review addresses the matching case: a group rape in Hamburg’s city park in September 2020, followed by a trial concerning the incident. Its account contradicts the claim’s central assertion that eight defendants were acquitted: on 28 November, Hamburg’s regional court convicted nine young men, while one defendant was acquitted at that proceeding and another had been acquitted earlier, on 5 April. The review specifies the outcomes for the nine convicted men. One 19-year-old received a prison sentence of two years and nine months without suspension. Four others received suspended sentences of up to two years. The remaining four received a German juvenile-law arrangement called “Vorbewährung”: the court deferred setting their sentences until after a six-month probationary period, when it would decide the sentence. Thus, deferred sentencing for those four was not an acquittal, and the review reports no acquittal of the eight men described in the claim. The review says the case concerned a girl who was very drunk and whom several groups of men took into bushes and had sex with against her will. It also notes an evidentiary qualification: semen containing DNA from the convicted men was found on the girl, but the review says there was no direct evidence of rape or signs of violence. The court nevertheless found the men guilty, applying the legal rule that sexual acts can be criminal when a victim is unable to express a will or consent. The supplied review does not identify the men as migrants, so that part of the claim is not established by this excerpt.

Factcrescendo Sri LankaCrime & justice

Perfume Laced Paper-Related Organized Kidnapping In Sri Lanka!

Publisher’s rating: False

The review addresses a viral warning circulating in Sri Lanka that strangers were supposedly offering perfume samples on paper treated with drugs, causing people to pass out and enabling kidnapping or robbery. The investigation says the message was circulating on WhatsApp and Facebook and identifies that warning—not a documented individual kidnapping—as the claim it checked. Its central local finding is that the Sri Lankan Police Media Unit reported no complaints or reports of incidents matching the story. The review also places the warning in a broader pattern: it says similar stories have circulated in other countries, where fact-checking organizations debunked them, and that the same message had circulated previously. These findings support the review’s conclusion that it found no substantiated evidence for the alleged Sri Lankan scam; the excerpt does not provide police records or identify particular international fact-checks by name. The article adds that it found no verified instances of people becoming incapacitated from the described scam. It also quotes toxicologist Dr. Ryan Marino on fentanyl, saying that exposure by touch or proximity does not cause an overdose. That medical point concerns a related drug-exposure fear, not a forensic test of the paper in the Sri Lankan warning. The excerpt reports no analysis of a sample or investigation of a named victim, so its stated basis is the absence of police reports, the warning’s recurrence, and the lack of verified cases—not direct testing of the alleged perfume paper.

المرصد الفلسطيني “تحقق”Crime & justice

“مقطع فيديو يكشف كذب الطفل محمد نزال لأنه ظهر في المقطع بعد خروجه من السجن ويداه سليمتان”.

Publisher’s rating: الفيديو الذي نشرته المواقع العبرية لم يُظهر أي وضوح ليدي الطفل نزال، كما أن يديه لم تتعرضا لكسر كامل يحول دون تحريكهما، وإنما لكسور في الرسغ وأصبعي السبابة والإبهام في كلتا اليدين.

YouturnCrime & justice

தனது பிள்ளைகளின் படிப்பு செலவிற்கு பணம் திரட்டுவதற்காக கடலூரை சேர்ந்த ஆயுள் தண்டனை கைதி செந்தில்குமாருக்கு 28 நாட்கள் சாதாரண விடுப்பு வழங்கி சென்னை உயர் நீதிமன்றம் உத்தரவு. தமிழீழ விடுதலை போராட்டத்திற்கு ஆதரவளிக்கும் வகையில் ரயில் மறியலில் ஈடுபட்டதற்காக 2012ல் ஆயுள் தண்டனை விதிக்கப்பட்டது .” எனக் கூறப்பட்டுள்ளது.

Publisher’s rating: misleading

dpaCrime & justice

Dieses Video zeigt einen echten Überfall von Männern auf drei Frauen.

Publisher’s rating: Es handelt sich um ein Video einer französischen Stuntschule und soll die Fähigkeiten ihrer Schülerinnen und Schüler zeigen. Das Originalvideo wurde am 2. November 2023 von der Schule auf Instagram veröffentlicht.

The video shows what looks like an attack in an underpass: three women appear to defend themselves against a group of men and escape. The dpa review examined that footage, which had been shared as if it showed a genuine assault. It reports that the scene was instead part of a stunt exercise. The school’s trainees were performing a street-fighting scenario, rather than experiencing a real attack. S1 states that the video was “Teil einer Übung zum Thema «Straßenkampf»” and that the protagonists were “Stuntman-Azubis.” The investigation describes two specific checks linking the footage to the stunt school. It says the sweatshirt logo visible on one man contains the letters “CUC,” identifying the French school Campus Univers Cascades. It also says the same video had been posted on the school’s Instagram account on 2 November 2023 to present its students’ abilities. S1 reports: “Es enthält die Buchstaben «CUC» und steht für die französische Stuntschule «Campus Univers Cascades»” and “Auf dem Instagram-Account der Schule wurde am 2. November dasselbe Video gepostet.” The review further reports that the school confirmed, in response to a Spanish fact-checker’s inquiry, that the people shown were stunt trainees. According to the review, the scene was filmed on 31 October 2023 in a railway underpass near the school. These details establish that the video’s staged appearance was not evidence of a real assault: the school identified the performers and described the filming as an exercise. S1 states: “Auf Anfrage spanischer Faktenprüfer bestätigte die Schule, dass es sich bei den Protagonistinnen und Protagonisten tatsächlich um Stuntman-Azubis handele” and “Es wurde am 31. Oktober 2023 in einer Bahnunterführung in der Nähe der Schule aufgenommen.”