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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.

6,854 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYCrime & justice

Video of Police killing COVID-19 affected people in China.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

FACTLY examined a social-media video presented as showing Chinese police killing people affected by COVID-19. Its review found that the post combined three unrelated clips, rather than documenting police killing people with the disease. The central context it identifies is a police response to a report about a dangerous dog in Yiwu, not an operation against people with COVID-19. The review says the Yiwu Police clarified that the armed officers shown in the first clip were there to kill a rabid dog. (The source describes the dog as “ravenous” in its account of the police statement.)

NewtralCrime & justice

Vuelve a compartirse en redes la imagen de una mujer esnifando cocaína como si fuera una diputada de Podemos

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerns a photograph shared on Facebook as showing a Podemos deputy snorting cocaine. Newtral reports that the image itself names Marisel Santibáñez, but says there is no Podemos officeholder by that name. Santibáñez was a Chilean legislator during the country’s then-current legislative term; the article cautions, however, that this does not establish that she is the woman in the photograph. To trace the image, Newtral says it found an earlier appearance in a humor group on Pinterest, where it was posted in 2016. The article also reports that the image had been used since January 2019 as the picture for a Mexican Facebook group called “Vídeos para morir de risa.” Those earlier uses place the image in meme contexts, not as evidence identifying the woman as a Spanish politician. The article describes other unsupported identifications of the same image: it had previously been presented as Ciudadanos deputy Ana Ronda, and in Argentina as Somos deputy Victoria Donda. Newtral says Donda denied to Chequeado that she was the person pictured. Together, the reported name mismatch and image history undermine the claim that the photograph depicts a Podemos deputy, while leaving the woman’s identity unestablished in the supplied text.

NewtralCrime & justice

Hay una “alerta policial” por un método para robar llamado “manos limpias” en el que te hacen oler un producto y luego te drogan

Publisher’s rating: Falso

Newtral investigated a purported police warning about a group posing as promoters of a medical NGO called “Manos Limpias.” The message alleged that the group stopped people in the street, put drugged disinfectant gel on their hands, and left them unconscious long enough to rob them. The article describes that allegation; it does not substantiate the distinct detail in the supplied claim that victims were made to smell a product. Newtral identifies the purported warning as a hoax. The decisive evidence reported is that the National Police publicly denied the warning. Newtral quotes a post from the official @policia account, published on June 8, saying the Manos Limpias publication was a hoax despite its realistic appearance, and says police urged people not to believe or forward it. The article also reports a denial by the Civil Guard, which called the gel-and-sleeping-drug story a recurring false rumor. The article says the warning circulated alongside a fabricated printed document falsely attributed to the National Police and Civil Guard, using their institutional imagery to appear authentic. It reports that the message also spread on Instagram. Thus, the evidence presented concerns the authenticity of the supposed warning and the alleged gel-based robbery method—not an actual police alert confirming such robberies.

Fact CrescendoCrime & justice

Claim: Did IT officers seized cash and jewels from Vijay

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

Fact Crescendo investigated a viral Facebook post claiming that a photograph of stacks of cash and some jewellery showed items seized from actor Vijay’s home in an income-tax raid. The review says the post was shared on February 6, 2020, and frames the raid as an inquiry into Vijay’s remuneration for the film *Bigil* and his investment of that income in property. The review reports that the Income Tax Department had said its inquiry concerned Vijay’s *Bigil* payment and its investment, and that it had announced seizure of cash and documents from a financier’s home—not cash from Vijay’s home. It says the department described the activity at Vijay’s home as an investigation, without reporting a cash seizure there. This directly contradicts the post’s claim that the pictured cash and jewellery were taken from his residence. The publisher also describes checking the image’s history through a Google reverse-image search. It says the image was traced to an income-tax raid in Karnataka in 2016, and had subsequently been used in news reports about cash seized by the tax department. On that basis, the review concludes that an older image was misrepresented as showing a seizure from Vijay’s home. The supplied excerpt does not identify the financier or provide the underlying department statement, so those details cannot be independently assessed from this text alone.