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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

Photograph of money recovered from BJP leader’s house in West Bengal

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a social-media photograph of stacked ₹2,000 notes, presented as money recovered from a BJP leader’s residence in West Bengal. FACTLY’s review says the image instead shows a Telangana police briefing after authorities seized counterfeit notes. It identifies the location as Khammam and the incident date as 2 November 2019—not West Bengal or a BJP leader’s residence. (S1: “The photograph in the post is neither related to any BJP leader nor is it from West Bengal. It is from Khammam, Telangana. The photograph shows the Telangana police who had nabbed a gang involved in the circulation of fake ₹ 2,000 notes on 02 November 2019.”) The review describes its image check: a reverse image search led to a 2019 Financial Express report about Telangana Police busting an inter-state gang involved in circulating fake ₹2,000 notes. That report placed the incident in Vemsoor Mandal, Khammam district, and said five people were arrested for cheating members of the public through a purported currency-exchange offer. (S1: “Reverse Image Search of the photograph led us to a 2019 news article by the Financial Express. As per the article, Telangana Police busted an inter-state gang involved in the circulation of fake ₹ 2,000 notes. The incident took place in Vemsoor Mandal of Khammam district. Police arrested five persons for cheating the public in the guise of exchanging ₹2,000 denomination currency notes and offering 20 percent commission.”) The review also cites reporting by ANI and Telangana Today. It says Telangana police seized 320 bundles of counterfeit notes and quotes the police commissioner as saying the racket operated from Sathupalli town. These details match the Telangana counterfeit-currency case, not the West Bengal claim; the review additionally reports finding no recent news reports of cash seized from a BJP leader’s house there. (S1: “Telangana police arrested four members of a family and some others while seizing 320 bundles of fake ₹ 2000 currency notes from Khammam. Commissioner of Police (CP) Tafseer Iqubal told the media that the racket was being operated with Sathupalli town (in Telangana) as its centre. Also, no recent news reports of cash being seized from BJP leader’s house in West Bengal were found.”)

FACTLYCrime & justice

Video of a couple being shot dead by a police officer

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

FACTLY investigated a social-media video presented as showing police shooting a couple in public. Its account says the footage was not documentation of a real shooting: it showed a scene filmed for an upcoming web series in Karnal, Haryana. The review describes the video as being shared as a true incident and identifies the filming location as Karnal city. To trace the footage, FACTLY says it performed a reverse image search on screenshots from the circulating video. It found similar visuals in a tweet by Uttar Pradesh police officer Rahul Srivastav, who attributed them to a web-series shoot outside Friends CAFE in Karnal, citing the cafe manager. FACTLY also says it compared the location with the view of Friends CAFE on Google Maps and found a similar view. The review reports further corroboration: UP Police also described the footage as a web-series clip; Karnal SP Ganga Ram Punia said the scene was being falsely shared as a real incident; and BOOM independently contacted Vinay Kohad, who played the police officer in the footage. Taken together, these details support the conclusion that the video showed staged filming, not the claimed real killing. The supplied excerpt does not name the web series or give a filming date.

FACTLYCrime & justice

People thrashing a kidnapper in Salem, Tamil Nadu who came to abduct small children

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video said to show people in Salem, Tamil Nadu, thrashing a kidnapper who had come to abduct small children. FACTLY reports that the video instead depicts a 2019 incident at the old bus stand in Thanjavur: a man under the influence of alcohol tried to abduct a school-going girl, people at the scene intervened and beat him, and he was handed over to police. The review says the incident had “nothing to do with Salem.”

Deutsche Presse-AgenturCrime & justice

Presse erfindet Angriffe von Querdenkern auf Journalisten bei Demo in Stuttgart

Publisher’s rating: In einem anderen Video ist deutlich zu erkennen, dass die Journalisten beworfen wurden. Die Filmsequenz, die dies angeblich widerlegen soll, wurde nicht zum Zeitpunkt des Angriffs aufgenommen.

The claim concerns footage from the 3 April 2021 Querdenken demonstration in Stuttgart. A Facebook video was presented as proof that reports of an attack on journalists were “fake news.” The review identifies the journalists as an SWR team and notes that its live broadcast for tagesschau24 ended after reporter Thomas Denzel said that stones were being thrown. [S1: “Bei Facebook wird nun ein Video verbreitet, das angeblich beweist, dass es sich bei dem Angriff um «FAKE-NEWS» handelt” and “SWR-Reporter Thomas Denzel berichtete am 3. April 2021 live von der Demonstration - bis er die Schalte mit den Worten abbrach: «Es werden hier Steine geworfen».”] The video offered as a rebuttal did not show an attack, but the review says it was not recorded at the same time as the incident. It compared the footage with another video shared on Twitter: in that recording, an object flies toward the journalists near the end and narrowly misses them. The review therefore found that the absence of an attack in the purported counterexample did not establish that no attack had occurred. [S1: “Zwar ist auf dem angeblichen Gegenbeweis-Video kein Angriff auf das SWR-Team zu sehen. In einem weiteren auf Twitter geteilten Video ist dieser jedoch zu erkennen: Am Ende fliegt ein Gegenstand in Richtung der Journalisten und verfehlt sie knapp.”] To establish that the clips were not simultaneous, the review points to people passing between demonstrators and the television crew and to different shouts on the audio tracks. It also reports that SWR editor-in-chief Fritz Frey first referred to a stone being thrown and later described hard objects thrown at the team. Stuttgart police began investigations that same day; the excerpt does not report their outcome. [S1: “Die Videos wurden nicht exakt gleichzeitig aufgenommen, wie man an den Menschen erkennt, die zwischen den Demonstranten und dem Fernsehteam vorbeigehen. Auch die unterschiedlichen Rufe auf der Tonspur beweisen, dass die Videos nacheinander entstanden sein müssen.” and “Die Stuttgarter Polizei nahm noch am gleichen Tag Ermittlungen auf.”]

FACTLYCrime & justice

ఏ కులాన్ని అవమానించినా కేసులు పెట్టేవిధంగా అట్రాసిటీ చట్టసవరణ చేయాలని, ఆత్మగౌరవం ఒకరి సొత్తు కాదని సుప్రీం కోర్టు లో వాదిస్తున్న కేంద్ర ప్రభుత్వం. దానికి సంబంధించిన న్యూస్ ఆర్టికల్ ఫోటో

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

Pagella PoliticaCrime & justice

«In Italia, per ottenere una sentenza definitiva ci vogliono mediamente 2.656 giorni, più del doppio rispetto a Spagna e Francia e quattro volte tanto rispetto alla Germania»

Publisher’s rating: Vero

Pagella Politica checked a statement by Lega senator Francesco Urraro that obtaining a final judgment in Italy takes an average of 2,656 days—twice as long as in France and Spain and four times as long as in Germany. The review says the post did not specify whether it meant civil, criminal or administrative justice. Because the post’s context concerned debt recovery, the review considered civil cases the likeliest intended subject, while also examining the other types of proceedings. It used the Council of Europe’s latest available country data at the time, published in September 2020 and generally referring to 2018. For civil cases, the review added the reported average durations across three court levels. Italy’s figures—527 days at first instance, 863 at second and 1,265 at third—total 2,655 days, very close to Urraro’s 2,656. France’s corresponding figures total 1,221 days and Spain’s 1,238, so Italy’s total is more than twice either comparator. Germany’s figures total 830 days, making Italy’s a little more than three times as long, not four times. The review notes that Germany’s third-level figure was from 2014 because newer figures were unavailable. Thus, the central Italian figure and the comparisons with France and Spain are supported for civil justice, but the claimed fourfold comparison with Germany overstates the difference. The review also reports that Italy ranked last among the large EU countries in its comparisons of criminal and administrative proceedings, while noting that the data and number of court levels differ by type of justice.

InFactCrime & justice

カリフォルニアではバイデン政権になってから法律が変わり、１１歳から大人との性的関係をもってよい事になりました。

Publisher’s rating: 誤り

The claim under review was that, after Joe Biden became president, California changed its law to permit adults to have sexual relations with children aged 11 and older. In examining that claim, the review describes California’s criminal statute as making sexual intercourse with a person under 18 unlawful when that person is not the perpetrator’s spouse. It also notes that penalties vary with the age difference between the people involved. The review identifies a marriage exception: a minor may marry with parental consent and a court order, and California has no minimum marriage age. Because the statute’s definition of unlawful intercourse excludes a spouse, sex with a minor spouse may fall outside that offense. The review also describes a separate statutory prohibition concerning sexual acts with children aged 10 or younger. These qualifications mean the claim’s broad wording does not accurately describe the general rule, even though the review says an adult’s sex with an 11-year-old could be lawful in the specific circumstance of marriage. Crucially, the review says the marriage rules were longstanding, not a change made after Biden took office. It cites a 2017 bill proposing a minimum marriage age that did not pass, and concludes that Biden’s inauguration was unrelated to the rules. The evidence therefore distinguishes a narrow, marriage-dependent possibility from the claim that the new administration changed the law to generally allow adults to have sex with 11-year-olds.