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.

6,854 published reviews in this topic

NewtralCrime & justice

Una multitud de manifestantes atacan a un furgón de policías en un barrio musulmán de Francia

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim attached to the video placed the attack in a “Muslim neighborhood of France.” Newtral’s investigation instead identified the footage as showing protests in Algiers, Algeria, in the demonstrations that led to then-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s fall on April 2. The review says the video shows a crowd attacking a police van with officers inside, but disputes the location given in the circulating post. [S1: “La publicación va acompañada de un texto que asegura que el incidente es en un «barrio musulmán de Francia». Es Falso. El vídeo ha sido grabado en Argel, capital de Argelia, durante las manifestaciones que llevaron a la caída del ahora expresidente Abdelaziz Buteflika el pasado 2 de abril.”] The review describes several checks on the footage. It points to an Algerian flag on a protester’s back from the 48-second mark and says the blue vehicle being pelted with stones and tear gas corresponds to Algerian anti-riot forces. To compare the vehicles, it used footage of protests published by Agence France-Presse on March 15, saying the police vehicles visible there were the same as those in the disputed video. [S1: “A partir del segundo 48 del vídeo, podemos observar que uno de los manifestantes lleva en su espalda una bandera de Argelia.”; “El furgón corresponde a las fuerzas anti disturbios de Argelia”; “se puede observar los vehículos de la Policía, que son exactamente los mismos que los que aparecen en el vídeo falsamente ubicado en Francia.”] The review also reports that the volunteer group Brassards Verts located the recording in Telemly, in Algiers, specifically on Avenue Krim Belkacem near the École supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and said it was filmed during March. Newtral says it checked this location against Google Earth, comparing the arrangement of buildings and a long wall visible in the video. These location details, alongside the flag and vehicle comparison, support the conclusion that the video was mislocated in the post. [S1: “el vídeo ha sido grabado en el barrio de Telemly de la capital Argelina, y más especificamente en la avenida Krim Belkacem, cerca de la escuela superior de Bellas Artes durante el mes de marzo.”; “A través de una búsqueda en Google Earth, podemos localizar el lugar exacto donde ocurrieron los altercados.”]

Fact CrescendoCrime & justice

Claim: Huge money seized from Sudhir gadgil car

Publisher’s rating: Fact Crescendo Rating: False

The review examines a viral post alleging that ₹20,000 crore in new banknotes had been seized from BJP MLA Sudhir Gadgil’s car, and that news outlets were silent about it. The investigators say the post combined three photographs with a Tamil headline. They used reverse-image searches to trace the images and searched for information about Gadgil. Their image search traced two of the three pictures to New Indian Express reporting: one accompanied an article about the government stopping the printing of ₹2,000 notes, and another was taken from a video and appeared in a separate New Indian Express report. The review therefore found that those images did not establish the alleged seizure of ₹20,000 crore from Gadgil’s car. For the third picture, the investigators found a 2018 Facebook post describing an earlier incident. It said that on November 14, 2016, ₹6 crore was seized from Gadgil’s car during checks after the withdrawal of ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes. According to that post, the cash was being taken to a bank headed by Gadgil’s brother, Ganesh, and police later returned it. The review says it found no news report about this incident and relied on the Facebook post for those details. It concludes that the viral post combined unrelated photographs and misleading information, rather than substantiating its ₹20,000-crore allegation.

YouturnCrime & justice

சில விலங்குகள் மனிதர்களை விட உயர்வானவை ! 2005 ஆம் ஆண்டில், 12 வயது பெண்ணை கடத்தி திருமணம் செய்து கொள்ள கட்டாயப்படுத்திய போது அங்கு வந்த மூன்று சிங்கங்கள் கடத்தியவர்களை விரட்டி துரத்தி விட்டு, அப்பெண்ணை எத்தியோப்பியா காவல்துறை காப்பாற்ற வரும் வரை பாதுகாத்து உள்ளன.

Publisher’s rating: True

Fact CrescendoCrime & justice

Claim: Brave woman killed 2 rapists

Publisher’s rating: Fact Crescendo Rating: False

The post claimed that a woman killed two men who tried to rape her and was then arrested, but gave no name, place or date for the alleged incident. Fact Crescendo investigated the identity of the pictured woman rather than accepting the post’s description as evidence of what happened. The review says it used a reverse-image search and found reporting in The Hindu identifying her as Subha Shankarnarayanan, from Bengaluru. It concludes that she did not kill two men to prevent sexual assault.

NewtralCrime & justice

“Nos opusimos porque [Villarejo] está ahora mismo testificando en la Audiencia Nacional, está preso”

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerned Pedro Sánchez’s explanation for the PSOE’s opposition to having former police commissioner José Villarejo appear before a congressional investigative commission: Sánchez said Villarejo was then testifying at the Audiencia Nacional and was in prison. Newtral checked when the PSOE opposed the appearance and compared that timing with Villarejo’s court and custody history, as well as the explanations PSOE representatives gave at the time. The article places the PSOE’s first opposition in late May 2017, covering appearances proposed for June and July. Villarejo did not enter prison until 5 November 2017, when judge Carmen Lamela ordered his unconditional detention in the Operación Tándem investigation. Newtral says that this was also the first time he testified at the Audiencia Nacional and acquired prisoner status. Thus, those circumstances arose after the PSOE had already opposed his congressional appearance and could not have been the reasons for that earlier decision. The article also checks what PSOE representatives said in 2017. It reports that José Luis Ábalos justified limiting witnesses to the commission’s subject, while Antonio Trevín said the party did not want to mix the Congress with media, personal, or judicial disputes. Newtral says it found no contemporaneous media report of PSOE leaders giving Sánchez’s later explanation. The contemporaneous explanations therefore differ from the reasons in the claim. Finally, Newtral compares the claim with other congressional inquiries: it reports that the PSOE supported appearances by people investigated in judicial proceedings, including some who were imprisoned, and notes that Francisco Correa testified by videoconference from prison. This further undercuts the suggestion that imprisonment or an ongoing court case was a general obstacle to PSOE-supported appearances. The article’s central chronological finding is that Villarejo’s detention and Audiencia Nacional testimony followed, rather than preceded, the PSOE’s opposition.