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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.

6,849 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYCrime & justice

Video of a person kidnapping a child in a suitcase

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video circulated as footage of a person kidnapping a child in a suitcase. FACTLY reports that the clip shows people stopping someone carrying a child in a suitcase, but concludes it was staged rather than footage of a real kidnapping. Its review identifies the man in a red cap as Raju Bharti, a YouTuber who runs the Bharti Prank channel. The investigation describes two checks: a commenter recognized the red-capped man, and a reverse image search identified him as Bharti. FACTLY also found a video with similar visuals on Bharti’s official Facebook page, dated 27 December 2021. The page’s description says its videos feature fictional characters and are made to spread social awareness. Together, the identification and the creator’s own description support the conclusion that the clip was scripted, not evidence of a real abduction. The review does not provide details about who first circulated the claim or independently document the making of the specific clip. Its account links the clip’s distinctive visuals to Bharti’s page and cites the page’s stated fictional-video context. It concludes that the video was falsely presented as real kidnapping footage.

dpaCrime & justice

Beim Internationalen Strafgerichtshof in Den Haag gibt es wegen Corona-Maßnahmen eine Anklage gegen Politiker, Wissenschaftler und Prominente.

Publisher’s rating: Es gibt keine solche Klage am Internationalen Strafgerichtshof und auch keine entsprechenden Ermittlungen der Ankläger dort. Der Artikel beruht auf einer Fehlinterpretation eines Schreibens von Aktivisten, von denen viele bereits zuvor durch das Verbreiten von falschen Informationen zur Pandemie und zur Sicherheit der Impfstoffe aufgefallen sind. Auch der Blog-Artikel und das Schreiben enthalten mehrfach widerlegte Falschbehauptungen.

The allegation concerned a blog report that COVID-19 measures and vaccinations had led to a case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague against figures including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab. The review found no such case or related investigation by the ICC prosecutor. To check the claim, it compared the allegation with the ICC’s listed preliminary examinations, investigations and cases; it reports that the claimed COVID-related matter appeared in none of those categories. The review traced the blog’s account to a letter circulating online, dated December 6, 2021. The letter asked the prosecutor to investigate and pursue proceedings against named officials and public figures, including Johnson, Gates and Schwab. That request is not evidence that the prosecutor opened an investigation or that a case was filed. The review says no response from the prosecutor or the ICC was known, and notes that the prosecutor is not obliged to begin preliminary examinations or investigations in response to outside submissions. The distinction at the heart of the claim is therefore between activists requesting action and the ICC actually initiating proceedings. The review also reports that the letter and blog article contained claims about pandemic measures, mRNA vaccines and testing procedures that had been repeatedly refuted. It describes several of the letter’s signatories as opponents of COVID measures and vaccination who had previously spread false information. The supplied excerpt does not identify the specific refutations, so it does not support a detailed account of those separate claims.

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaCrime & justice

ජුබිලි කණුවේ කිරි පෝලිම් ගැන අසත්‍ය තොරතුරු පැතිරවූ ජවිපෙ සාමාජිකයින් දෙදෙනෙකු CID භාරයට ??

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

The claim concerns the milk-powder queue near Jubilee Junction in Mirihana, Nugegoda, and alleges that two JVP members were taken into CID custody for spreading false information about it. The review found that the alleged CID action was being conflated with a separate reported inquiry: a woman from a women’s association said she was questioned after sharing a Facebook post about people booing the President. The review reports that she was not a JVP member, and says the JVP’s media division denied that two of its members had been questioned. To check whether the claimed CID action had been reported, the publisher says it examined mainstream-media coverage and contacted Police Media Spokesperson Nihal Thalduwa and the JVP media division. It reports that the police spokesperson said no JVP social-media activists had been arrested or summoned over the milk-powder queue, while the JVP also rejected the claim that two members had been questioned. The review therefore found no support for the allegation that two JVP members were taken to the CID over the queue. The review also examined the underlying queue story. It describes a police statement saying the President noticed the long queue and asked Deputy Inspector General Deshabandu Tennakoon to look into it. The stated reasons for congestion were that the outlet distributed milk powder through one counter and nearby areas lacked other Palawatta distributors. The police said steps were agreed to increase the number of nearby distributors; the statement did not mention booing and denied that police had sealed the shop. This provides context for the queue, but does not substantiate the claimed CID action against JVP members.

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaCrime & justice

FACT CHECK: ගල් තලාවක වැතිර සිටි මිනිසෙකුගේ ඡායාරූපයක් ලබාගැනීම නිසා සිරගත කෙරුණු උතුරු කොරියානු ඡායාරූප ශිල්පියෙක් ?

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

The post claimed that a North Korean photographer was imprisoned for taking a photograph of a man lying on a rock, supposedly because the image showed a bleak aspect of life in North Korea. The review investigated that specific image and claim. It says a reverse-image search led to an Alamy listing identifying the photographer as Eric Lafforgue, and describes him as French rather than North Korean. The listing described the picture as showing a North Korean man sleeping on a rock in sunlight. The review traces the image to Lafforgue’s early-2014 trip to North Korea with government-provided guides. It reports that guides objected to photographs including the one of the man on the rock and told him to delete them. Lafforgue kept the images on a memory card, left the country, and put them online. According to the review, North Korean authorities subsequently barred him from returning because they considered his photographs damaging to the country’s image. The key distinction is between that reported travel ban and imprisonment: the review says it found no account of Lafforgue being jailed over the photographs. It also says the guides’ objection to the image was that Western media might interpret the man as dead. Thus, the investigation supports that the image and the restrictions on the photographer were connected, but not the post’s claims about the photographer’s nationality or his being imprisoned.

FACTLYCrime & justice

Video showing the seized jewellery from TTD Board member J. Sekar Reddy’s house

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post presented a video as showing jewellery seized in an Income-tax raid on TTD Board member J. Sekar Reddy’s house. The review says the accompanying claims described a seizure of 128 kilograms of gold, ₹150 crore in cash and diamonds said to be worth ₹70 crore. It distinguishes the video’s provenance from a real, earlier raid on Reddy’s residences: the video was not evidence of that raid. To check the video, the review reports conducting reverse image searches on screenshots from it. Those searches found similar visuals in a Jaya TV news video published on 22 December 2021. Jaya TV identified the footage as recovered jewellery from a robbery at the Jos Alukkas showroom in Vellore, Tamil Nadu—not as jewellery from Reddy’s house. The review places that footage in the context of a robbery at the showroom on the night of 14 December 2021. It reports that 15 kilograms of gold and almost 500 grams of diamonds were stolen, that police recovered all the jewellery, and that they arrested the culprit, Deekaraman. The review also notes that Income-tax officials did raid Reddy’s residences in 2016, seizing ₹100 crore in cash and 120 kilograms of gold. That separate historical raid does not establish that the video shows its seized property; the review’s comparison of the video’s visuals to footage of the Vellore recovery is the decisive evidence against the post’s identification.

dpaCrime & justice

Man wordt op geweldadige wijze gearresteerd omdat hij geen masker droeg.

Publisher’s rating: De arrestatie van de man heeft niets te maken met het feit of hij een mondmasker draagt. Hij werd gearresteerd omdat hij een zakkenroller zou zijn, die betrapt werd terwijl hij reizigers op een station probeerde te bestelen.

The video shows two security guards struggling with a man; during the confrontation, a guard’s dog bites his leg. The review addresses the claim that this happened because the man was not wearing a mask. It places the incident at the car park of Barcelona’s northern railway station, where the man was held by security until police arrived. The review describes several checks on the video’s setting and the people involved. In another version of the footage, it identifies an orange poster and a blue “P” sign as matching material on the website of B:SM, which operates car parks in Barcelona. It also identifies a security-company logo on the guards’ clothing. The review says Spanish-language news reports described the man as a suspected pickpocket who had tried to rob a traveller and behaved violently toward the guards. The review further reports that B:SM’s spokesperson told AFP and Maldita that security guards detained the man because he was trying to rob someone, and that the dog was used to restrain him after he became aggressive. This evidence connects the arrest and the dog’s involvement to the alleged theft and resistance, rather than to mask-wearing.