The Documentary Podcast BBC Trending: From a suspected smuggler's TikTok to tragedy

In January a boat carrying migrants across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe was miraculously rescued by a fishing trawler after two weeks lost at sea. At least 20 people died from starvation, dehydration and hypothermia. Many of those on the boat - Pakistani men - were promised safe, legal routes to Europe by the smugglers but that was far from their reality.
BBC Trending tracks the digital footprint of one of the suspected smugglers wanted for deaths on this very migrant boat. On TikTok, trivial videos depict his lifestyle - one of money, nice restaurants and a lot of travel. But these videos reveal much more about the smuggler's operations.
Presenter/producer: Reha Kansara and Shruti Menon
Producer: Mohammad Zubair Khan

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Metro

15 hours ago

• Metro

Seventeen young girls 'injected with syringes' at popular music festival

Seventeen young girls have been injected or stabbed with a 'syringe' at a popular music festival in France. The concertgoers reported being injected during the Fête de la Musique music festival in Metz, eastern France on Saturday. The attacks appear to have followed calls on social media for women to be injected with syringes. Similar incidents have been reported in other French citites. Two people were arrested by police in Metz following the stabbings but the city's mayor said one is not believed to be linked to the alleged crimes, according to La Republicain Lorrain. The 'syringe assaults' were reported as the Fête de la Musique in Metz, which attracted up to 50,000 people, was in full swing. Fête de la Musique, or 'World Music Day', is celebrated across France on June 21, with a variety of performances, stalls and events. The girls injected at the event in Metz were mainly minors and aged between 14 and 20, Mayor François Grosdidier said on social media. Ten incidents were first reported around 10pm and took place between two of the city's famous spots Place de la République and Place Saint-Jacques, as well in the city centre. The number of victims rose to 17 and a medical triage was set up by firefights at Place d'Armes. All 17 girls were taken to Mercy Hospital for testing after seven ambulances were sent to the festival. A man was arrested at the scene after being reportedly identified by one of his victims. No sharp or pointed object are yet to be found by police, who reportedly also arrested a singer for allegedly slapping a young girl. Mayor Grosdidier said on Facebook that the attacks follow calls on social media for women to be injected by syringes at music festivals in France. He said: 'On social media, a call was made to carry out syringe attacks during the Music Festivals in major cities. This happened in two other cities in Moselle and across France. 'In total, 17 young girls (aged 14 to 20) were victims in Metz. I offer them all my sympathy and support. 'A description of a syringe attacker was shared with the Urban Supervision Center (CSU) to help locate him on video footage, as well as with the municipal and national police. 'Municipal police officers identified him on Rue Serpenoise, arrested him, and handed him over to the National Police and judicial authorities. 'I hope the investigation – especially examining his mobile phone – will help identify other attackers.' These attacks are believed to have taken place in other cities, including Thionville, Sarreguemines, and Nancy. One father spoke of his daughter's fear of being injected after coming across posts about it online. More Trending The unnamed dad told La Republicain Lorrain: 'I wanted to take my wife and children to the Fête de la Musique in Metz. My 13-year-old daughter told me she didn't want to go because of the messages she saw on TikTok. So we stayed home…' Metro has seen a number of videos on TikTok, warning festival goers about the risks of injections and telling them to call the police if they fear they have fallen victim. They warn the injections could cause dizziness, and urge revellers to look out for suspicious people in the crowds. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: I blamed myself even after he sent me to A&E 11 times in 5 months MORE: Bride among two killed after gunmen open fire at wedding reception in France MORE: Leicester man jailed after raping woman while on bail for another charge

The Guardian

17 hours ago

• The Guardian

‘It's thieving': impersonators steal elderly people's TikToks to hawk mass-produced goods

In April of this year, Daisy Yelichek was scrolling TikTok when something unusual appeared in her feed: a video of her 84-year-old father, George Tsaftarides, who runs an account sharing sewing videos from his small tailoring business in Ohio. But the video Yelichek was seeing was not from Tsaftarides' actual page, which has nearly 41,000 followers – but instead originated from a profile of someone claiming to be a 'sad old man' whose cat sanctuary was at risk of shutting down. 'Please stay 8 seconds so I don't have to shut down my cat shelter I poured my love into,' the text on the video said, adding that the sanctuary would be selling slippers to raise additional funds. The bid for sympathy worked on many viewers, garnering millions of views and tens of thousands of users leaving concerned comments. 'Just ordered two! Sending love to these kittens,' wrote one. Another commenter said: 'thank you for all you do for these babies.' Others even asked if there was a GoFundMe link to donate directly to the cat shelter. Yelichek and her father were shocked. Tsaftarides does not run a shelter. The account posting the plea for funds appears to be a front for a scheme seeking to sell mass-produced slippers. Several of Tsaftarides' followers who actually ordered slippers complained that the fuzzy footwear came with 'made in China' tags and did not, in fact, appear to be handmade by an elderly man with a struggling cat sanctuary. 'These people are using my identity to make money and I don't understand why,' Tsaftarides said. 'It's thieving, it's stealing, and it's not right.' Tsaftarides is not the only TikTok user who has had his likeness hijacked by such accounts. Charles Ray, an 85-year-old retiree based in Michigan, has also been targeted by accounts using doctored videos of his likeness. He started his actual TikTok account in January and uses it to share jokes with his followers. 'Earlier this year, my pastor told me a joke about a frog, and I thought, 'that ought to make people smile,' so I figured out how to make an account and told the joke, and it took off from there,' he said. Ray's videos all follow a similar template: filmed in selfie mode, he tells a short joke. He was frustrated to learn his content, which he makes only to 'share joy' and not to earn money, was being lifted and edited to scam people. In one video, Ray is rubbing his eye, and the repost seems to imply he is crying. Another video uses a clip from a woman crying on TikTok about an unrelated issue, and another includes a user in a hospital bed. Since she first discovered the proliferation and manipulation of her father's face, Yelichek has identified more than 100 accounts splicing his videos with other, unrelated users to sell mass-produced goods including slippers, headphone cases and blankets – all under the guise of independent sellers that need help. Some two dozen Instagram accounts and YouTube as well as a handful were pulling the same trick, according to a list compiled by Yelichek and a review of the accounts by the Guardian. At one point, Yelichek even made contact with the account manipulating her father's likeness over direct message and pleaded with its owner to stop. The person behind the account claimed to be a poor 17-year-old boy based in Greece trying to make money for his family. 'I totally understand your situation but I also want you to understand mine,' he said, proceeding to post more stolen videos. The con replicates a recurring genre of video on TikTok that has boosted sales for some small businesses: user makes a heartfelt post about a local store or restaurant that is struggling, and online followers are moved to support it. One typical post mimicking a local plea for help reads: 'Please just stay 15 seconds to save my pawpaw's slipper small business.' In the case of videos Yelichek is seeing, many commenters who are moved by the fake story try to boost it by commenting names of celebrities and creating other engagement they believe TikTok prioritizes. 'Fun fact,' a comment on one video of the type reads, this one using the same formula but claiming to be a struggling cow sanctuary. 'Liking and replying to comments boosts more! Referencing popular things like Chappell Roan and Taylor Swift puts this video on the [for you page] of more people.' The video pulled in 1.4 million likes and 26,000 comments before being taken down. Yelichek says these accounts lift videos from other TikTok users as well and recontextualize them to create a false narrative. Tsaftarides said his content being used to sell mass-produced goods is particularly frustrating, as he started his account to promote small businesses, including his own, and to encourage people to shop locally. 'All we want to do is show people our store and teach them about sewing,' he said. 'We don't make money off of our TikTok account.' Yelichek said she and her father filed a police report to Jackson township police in Ohio, where their store is based, for identity theft and have made great efforts to get social networks to take the stolen content down – often to no avail. Yelichek said that while Instagram has removed a few of the profiles she reported, TikTok – the platform where the issue is more widespread – has been less responsive. Sign up to TechScape A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives after newsletter promotion 'If we comment on [these videos] saying they're spam, our comments often get deleted right away, with TikTok saying it's against their community guidelines,' Yelichek said, sharing screenshots of the messages. 'They've actually put strikes on my dad's account for me commenting on these videos to say that they are spam and scamming people.' TikTok users who have gotten wise to the scheme have commented on videos calling out the scam. Like Yelichek, some comments say that TikTok responds to their reports of a video by saying it does not violate its community guidelines. TikTok said in a statement that its community guidelines do, in fact, prohibit impersonation accounts and content that violates others' intellectual property rights. Reports of copyright infringement concerns may require proof of ownership, including links to the original content and links to infringing content. Meta similarly stated its Instagram terms of use do not allow posting content that violates someone else's intellectual property rights, including copyright and trademarks, and that violations can be reported on Instagram's help page. Ray, the 85-year-old jokester, said he tried reporting the videos to TikTok but got responses that the content he had flagged did not violate TikTok's community standards. Like Yelichek, he said his comments on the videos alerting followers to the scam were frequently removed, and that he gets 'no help from TikTok' and does not know how to further communicate with the company. TikTok said in a statement that it continuously takes action against such copyright violations. It added that 94% of all content removed for violating community guidelines on fake engagement in the fourth quarter of last year was removed proactively rather than in response to reports. Meanwhile, some users are catching on to this particular kind of sadness bait – with recent videos going viral alerting people to the fact that the posts begging for help with failing cat shelters, cow farms and other heart-wrenching fictions are not real. Though awareness may spread, the impersonating videos remain available. In lieu of takedowns, Ray said he has decided to continue to make his videos because many of his 13,000 followers have told him they look forward to his posts each day. 'With everything that's going on nowadays, people need to smile,' he said. 'If my followers smile, even for a minute, they've forgotten their troubles for a minute. So that's all I try to do – to make people smile. This is not going to stop me.'

Scottish Sun

20 hours ago

• Scottish Sun

I talked dozens out of boarding doomed Titan sub over catastrophic safety risks – Brit victims were deceived, says diver

Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A LEADING deep sea diver who warned Stockton Rush over Titan sub's catastrophic safety risks says victims were "deceived". Titanic expedition leader Rob McCallum talked almost 40 people out of going on the doomed sub - which claimed five lives when it imploded two years ago. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 9 Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate, had been warned over safety concerns 9 Debris from the sub is unloaded from a ship Credit: AP 9 Businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman were killed Credit: Reuters 9 McCallum, who has led seven dives to the Titanic, implored OceanGate boss Rush to let an independent agency test his vessel. But his warnings over the sub's critical safety failings fell on deaf ears and "intolerant" Rush simply brushed aside cautions from experts. The world was put in a chokehold when the unclassed sub vanished from radar during a 12,500ft dive down to the Titanic wreckage. Five days after it disappeared on June 18, 2023, a piece of debris was found on the ocean floor - confirming fears it had imploded. All five on board - Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and son Suleman, 19 - were killed. Harrowing emails show McCallum tried to warn Rush over Titan's danger - but the OceanGate CEO replied he was "tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation". Rush wrote: "We have heard the baseless cries of 'you are going to kill someone' way too often. I take this as a serious personal insult." McCallum said their tense email exchange ended after OceanGate's lawyers threatened legal action, and so he focussed on limiting the number of people who boarded Titan. He told The Sun: "I'd written to him three or four times, and he wasn't going to change. "I'd run out of options. I thought the sub would not survive sea trials and so I just focused on trying to limit the number of people that got into that thing. 'What's that bang?' Chilling moment sound of doomed Titan sub imploding heard from support ship "I probably talked three dozen people out of going on Titan, and I wouldn't get melodramatic about it, because I didn't want to over dramatise it. "Both because I wanted them to keep listening to what I was saying, but also I didn't want to become a drama queen and sort of written off as hysterical. "And so my simple answer was always, I would never get in an unclassed vehicle and nor should you." McCallum said he spoke to both Harding and Nargeolet, who both decided to take the risk. But he said Dawood and his son Suleman would have had "no idea" about the danger they were putting themselves in on the £195,000 dive as OceanGate downplayed the risk. McCallum said: "Hamish and Paul-Henri knew it was risky, but not the level of risk that they were taking. "The other two had no idea at all. And the reason that there's that uncertainty is because I think there was a concerted effort of deception. 9 British billionaire Hamish Harding was among those on the sub Credit: Reuters 9 French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, also died Credit: AFP 9 "If you look at the culture of OceanGate, they weren't willing to take outside commentary, and anyone inside the camp that spoke out got fired or worse. "And so you've got this diminishing group of people that are only listening to themselves and they just tuned out the talk of the risk. "The risk was still there. But they just weren't talking about it anymore." McCallum, who founded expedition company EYOS, said all of those who he successfully advised not to board Titan realise they had a "close call". He added: "Within 48 hours of the implosion one rang up in tears and said, 'I owe you my life. I was going to get into that sub, and I couldn't get your voice out of my head, and so I turned around and came home'. "He lost his deposit but he said 'I just couldn't get your voice out of my head', and he was in tears. "People are very conscious that they had a close call." McCallum said on the fateful day of the sub's disappearance from radar he "just felt sick". After the sub lost contact with its support ship Polar Prince rescue crews worked around the clock in what was thought to be a race against time to save the crew. But McCallum said it was clear the sub had imploded. 9 "I knew immediately what had happened," he said. "There were two or three days when everyone was going through the search and rescue. "I didn't understand that because we knew it had imploded. "I was sad to lose some friends and shipmates. But I was grateful for small mercies that it would have been instantaneous." Engineer Rush, who co-founded OceanGate in 2009, created Titan with an experimental design made up of a carbon-fiber pod with titanium rings bolted on. McCallum said carbon fiber material is not fit for submerging so deep underwater. But McCallum's warning that carbon fiber would not withstand such pressure, Rush informed him he was "going to carry on regardless". In 2018, OceanGate's then chief pilot David Lochridge was fired after his inspection report laid bare a series of safety risks. A report from the Marine Board of Investigation is expected to be released in the coming weeks. McCallum said: "The report will be comprehensive and should cover all of the attributing elements that led to the disaster. "It will also indicate who is responsible and who might be subject to prosecution." 9 Rob McCallum urged Rush to get the sub certified Credit: Facebook