There is fake news that we no longer even bother to denounce as it defies common sense: the earth is flat, oranges contaminated with HIV, the adventures of Internet users in 2054… Others take their strength of a tinge of plausibility, simply because the facts they present actually happened, at least in part. This is the case of this rumor circulating on social networks, claiming that in France, women with children trap good souls to throw them as food for organ traffickers.
Last Friday, on TikTok, an Internet user from Lille published a video entitled “the milk attack”. Viewed by more than 300,000 network users, this video explains that at Lille station, a woman narrowly escaped a kidnapping instigated by a Romanian couple. The author of the video describes the technique: a woman asks a passerby to buy her milk for her hungry baby. If the person accepts, they supposedly guide them to a store while, on the way, accomplices wait to kidnap them. If, in this video, there is no question of organ trafficking, many others affirm that the scheme was set up for these purposes.
“I heard drivers discussing this”
A first wave of videos spreading this rumor was observed in 2022. Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Roubaix, etc. If we are to believe the perpetrators, who sometimes present themselves as victims who escaped the tragedy, the whole of France is concerned. And everyone ensures optimal virality by using popular hashtags such as #organtrafficking, #baby, #kidnapping. The story is essentially the same: one or more organized gangs carry out kidnappings, often in train stations, in order to relieve their victims of their organs, which are sold on the black market. “I heard drivers discussing this with a customer and decided to make a video about it,” he told 20 minutes the author of the video posted Friday. For him, his source is reliable. Before blocking us, he continues by assuring that “this technique is common almost everywhere according to the comments”.
To date, there is nothing to support in any way the claims made in these videos. Already, in 2022, the Departmental Directorate of Public Security (DDSP) of Marseille had been forced to deny this “fake news” which was starting to gain momentum. Contacted by 20 minutes, the information and communication service of the national police (sicop) has never identified any facts of this kind. “We have nothing to communicate on this since it does not exist,” assures a spokesperson. For the police, this is an “urban legend”, in the same way, in its time, as rumors about the “white slave trade”.
An international and very lucrative business
The authorities’ denials, however, only concern the national territory. Because, unfortunately, organ trafficking business does exist, and this lucrative business is carried out on an industrial scale. Indeed, according to an Interpol report, published in 2021, North and West Africa are also the area of action of organized gangs practicing human trafficking, particularly for the purpose of taking organs. “Globally, when the demand for organs cannot be met through ethical transplantation practices, the supply often occurs through illegally obtained organs. This means that they were purchased from individuals whose organs were taken under duress,” the report describes.
Interpol even deplores a boom in “medical tourism” which seems “linked to human trafficking for the purpose of organ harvesting”. And the figures show the extent of trafficking, with the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating that “5 to 10% of organ transplants carried out worldwide result from organ trafficking, or around 15,000 transplants per year” . Also in 2021, a report from the National Assembly cited a document from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime which estimated profits linked to organ trafficking at $600 million per year.