SAPS flags viral Makhanda child post as a data harvesting scam

A Facebook post claiming that a child had been found in Extension 8, Joza, in Makhanda is fabricated, the South African Police Service in the Eastern Cape said this week, and the post is doing the rounds as a scam rather than a missing person notice.

No such incident was reported to, or recorded by, any local police station, police spokesperson Captain Marius McCarthy said. The post carries a photograph of an individual and has been shared widely.

As IOL reported on 18 September, SAPS has dismissed the claim and asked residents not to pass it on. The facts of the matter are the police service’s own, and they are worth setting out in full, because the mechanics of this particular post are the reason it spread.

What the post is actually doing

McCarthy described the post as part of a growing social media scam trend in which users share emotionally charged appeals under the impression that they are helping. The posts typically recycle old images of children. The comment section is often switched off, which stops anyone who recognises the picture from warning the people below it.

Once a post has travelled far enough, the caption is frequently edited to insert malicious links. Those links are built to hijack profiles or to take personal data.

That sequence matters to anyone who has ever shared a missing child alert in good faith. The share is not the end of the post. It is the point at which the post becomes useful to whoever wrote it.

Why police treat it as serious

The service said the circulation of unverified alerts is irresponsible. Fabricated notices about child abductions and missing minors cause public panic, pull officers away from real cases, and distract from genuine emergencies.

That last point is the one that lands hardest in a province as stretched as the Eastern Cape. Every hour a police station spends running down a post that was never true is an hour not spent on a docket that was.

SAPS has asked the public to delete the post, not to share it, and to ignore it. The service also reminded residents to check missing or found person notices against official SAPS channels, credible media houses or recognised non-profit organisations before interacting with them at all.

What to do instead

A missing person report in South Africa is a police matter from the first hour, and the correct route is a case opened at a station, which generates a case number a family can follow. Community policing forums, neighbourhood watches and established welfare organisations are the other channels that can be checked. A photograph with no case number attached to it is not a report.

Anyone with information about where this specific post came from is asked to contact Crime Stop on 08600 10111, or to submit a tip anonymously through the MySAPS app.

The post is still circulating. The police service’s request is a simple one, and it costs the reader nothing to follow: do not share it, and check the next one before you do.

Source: IOL, Eastern Cape police debunk Facebook hoax about child allegedly found in Makhanda