Skip to main content

PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Crime & justice fact checks

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

6,836 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYCrime & justice

An alert message by K.M. Nagaraju, DCP crime branch, regarding a ‘kidnapping scam using perfumes’

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a circulating alert that kidnappers near malls or other places would invite people to test perfume by sniffing drug-laced paper, then take them after they passed out. The post attributed the warning to K.M. Nagaraju, DCP Crime Branch. FACTLY investigated whether police had issued such an alert and whether Nagaraju had made it.

Vera FilesCrime & justice

Ang International Criminal Court ay walang hurisdiksyon sa Pilipinas. Walang legal o moral na obligasyon ang Pilipinas na makipagtulungan sa ICC.

Publisher’s rating: Kailangan ng konteksto

Research from related reporting provides a relevant qualification to the claim that the ICC has no jurisdiction in the Philippines. In reporting on Rodrigo Duterte’s challenge to the court’s authority, GMA News said the ICC Appeals Chamber rejected all four grounds of his appeal and confirmed the earlier decision. The report says the earlier chamber found that the prosecutor’s preliminary examination began before the Philippines formally notified the court of its withdrawal from the Rome Statute. Thus, the reporting describes the ICC as asserting jurisdiction over alleged crimes connected to Duterte’s case despite the withdrawal; it does not establish that the ICC has jurisdiction over every matter involving the Philippines. The supplied excerpts do not resolve the separate assertion that the Philippines has no legal or moral obligation to cooperate. They report litigation about the ICC’s jurisdiction and its proceedings against Duterte, but provide no analysis of the scope of any cooperation duty. The evidence therefore qualifies the claim about jurisdiction in this specific case, but is insufficient to determine the broader cooperation assertion.

FACTLYCrime & justice

A young Dalit man named Lakhan’s head was shaved, and he was assaulted by a mob in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns a video said to show a young Dalit man named Lakhan having his head shaved and being assaulted by a mob in Meerut. FACTLY’s review says the incident did take place in Meerut and identifies the man as Lakhan Kumar, who was assaulted in the Brahmpuri area. The key question is whether the video supports the post’s implication that he was attacked by people from another community. To investigate, FACTLY reports searching for coverage of an incident in Meerut involving Lakhan and finding reports from TV9 and Amar Ujala that used the same video. Those reports described Lakhan Kumar as having been assaulted by people from Mangat Puram Basti, in the Brahmpuri police-station area, following allegations of molestation. FACTLY notes that those reports did not state Lakhan’s caste. The review then cites a response from Meerut Police saying the two parties were relatives. It also reports that the police told The Indian Express that Lakhan and his attackers were Dalits. That context undercuts the post’s implied claim that people from other communities attacked him; the police account presented the dispute as one between relatives who belonged to the same community. FACTLY further notes that the FIR did not include sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The evidence therefore supports the reported assault and location, but not the post’s implied inter-community framing.

Boatos.orgCrime & justice

Chefão do FBI exige que Augusto Aras autorize a prisão e extradição de Moraes para os EUA

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim says that the FBI’s chief demanded that Brazil’s then-prosecutor general, Augusto Aras, authorize Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes’s arrest and extradition to the United States. The review examines versions of that message circulating online, including one that says the FBI chief demanded Aras’s approval. It reports that the story spread through social-media profiles and a YouTube channel, but the versions it examined supplied no reliable source for the allegation. The review describes its checks as examining the message, the channel’s history, searches of reliable sources and the source of the claim. It says the message was vague and alarmist and cited no reliable evidence. It also notes that the same channel had published other claims about the FBI arresting Moraes, including videos framed around a supposed request by a congresswoman and a supposed disclosure by a U.S. senator. The review uses that history to explain why it considered the channel unreliable, rather than as proof that the arrest claim was true. The investigation’s central finding is that it found no confirmation in reliable sources, despite describing such an international allegation as one that would attract widespread attention. It also gives two reasons the claim’s account of the process was implausible: the FBI could not simply request the arrest of Brazilians in the manner described, and Aras did not decide whether someone would be arrested. The review concludes that the allegation that Moraes would be arrested by the FBI on Aras’s decision was false.