Fake viral video shows human trafficking victims

Lina Portman2 days ago

0 2 minutes read

The Claim: Video Shows Human Trafficking Victims in Back of Truck in Atlanta

An Instagram post from June 26 (direct link, archive link) includes a video showing a person's arm sticking out of the back of a commercial moving truck as it drives down a highway.

“2 DAYS AGO: Human trafficking detected in Atlanta,” the post’s caption read. “Stay safe, everyone!”

The article garnered more than 7,000 likes in a week. Other versions of the claim were widely shared on Instagram and X, formerly Twitter.

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Our rating: False

Gwinnett County police said they stopped the vehicle shown in the video and the occupants were families traveling from Alabama to Maryland. There was no evidence of trafficking and the driver was ticketed for passengers not wearing seat belts.

Passengers were “neither restrained nor in distress”

Contrary to claims in the viral posts, authorities found no evidence of human trafficking when they stopped the truck in the video as it traveled on Interstate 85 on June 21, according to Gwinnett County Police Department spokesman Sergeant Collin Flynn. The department is located about 30 miles northeast of Atlanta.

According to Flynn, eight people, including two minors, from two different families were in the back of the vehicle. Each of them told police the group was moving from Alabama to Maryland in search of new jobs.

“They were not restrained or in distress,” Flynn said, adding that the occupants' personal belongings were also in the vehicle.

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The driver, whose identity was not released in the news release, was ticketed for allowing passengers to ride without seat belts, Flynn said. Officers dropped off those passengers at a nearby business so they could find another way to get to Maryland.

Atlanta-based media outlets including WSB-TV and WAGA-TV also reported that the incident was not related to human trafficking.

USA TODAY has debunked a series of claims related to human trafficking, including false claims that President Joe Biden rescinded former President Donald Trump's executive order targeting child sex trafficking on his second day in office, that Etsy trafficked children, proving the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory is real, and that human traffickers were tagging cars to identify future victims in Pennsylvania in 2022.

USA TODAY reached out to several users who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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The Claim: Video Shows Human Trafficking Victims in Back of Truck in Atlanta

Our rating: False

Passengers were “neither restrained nor in distress”

Our fact-checking sources:

Lina Portman

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