Lebanon: TikTok Gang Bust Exposes Criminal Exploitation of Social Media

An Internal Security Forces patrol in Beirut (ISF Media).

Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces arrested a gang of TikTokers who lure children and molest them, a criminal act shedding light on networks exploiting social media platforms to implicate people in various sorts of crimes.
At least six suspects have been arrested, the ISF said in a statement on Wednesday, including a famous TikToker and three minors also famous on TikTok as part of a gang carrying out sexual assaults against children.
They were of Lebanese, Syrian, and Turkish nationalities.
The scandal uncovered certain criminal networks that were exploiting social media, using it as a tool to falsely incriminate Lebanese individuals in unlawful acts.
A judicial source told Asharq Al-Awsat that preliminary investigations have shown that the matter has been ongoing for months, and that certain factors have helped it be uncovered.
The source assured that the file gains special attention because the victims are children who were “drugged, assaulted and filmed naked to intimidate and blackmail them, and forced to comply with the gang’s demands”.
He affirmed that the judiciary will impose the harshest measures and penalties against this gang and all those colluding with its leaders, “some of whom are known professionally and socially”.
“The ISF’s Intelligence Unit and the office of combating financial crimes, as well as the General Security apparatus, are working to track down dangerous gangs that plan to implicate people in crimes,” a security source told Asharq Al-Awsat.
“In the last three years, the agencies have gotten hold of a substantial number of networks exploiting social media to lure people and implicate them in drug, prostitution, and theft networks. Mossad networks and its agents have also succeeded in recruiting many Lebanese youth through these means”, he added on condition of anonymity.
The source noted that criminals have exploited Lebanon’s economic and financial crisis taking advantage of the victims who need money.
“The economic crisis has also affected the capabilities of the security services, and has limited their role in the field of proactive security,” he said.
He noted that the state has failed to provide modern and sophisticated technologies capable of monitoring these networks, and also prevented the training of investigative agencies to keep pace, track and prosecute the development of network activities.