Video shows a film shoot, not extortion gang

A video was recently spread on social media claiming to show a group carrying out extortion in the streets. However, a fact-check by Dismislab found that the video actually shows a scene from a film shoot.

On September 13, a 19-second video (archived) was posted from a Facebook profile named “Sunu Miah.” The post read, “Has anyone ever seen a full extortion team on the street before.” The video shows a group of young men openly rehearsing with makeshift or traditional weapons in a crowded market. A young man wearing a red T-shirt, standing in the front of the group, holds a large axe. Beside him, another young man wearing a shirt combining shades of pink, red and blue holds a large machete or sharp weapon. Throughout the scene, ordinary pedestrians can be seen continuing to move about normally in the surrounding street.

As of the publication of this report, the post had been shared more than 23,000 times and had received more than 2,000 reactions.

The same video was also posted on the Facebook page of an online news outlet called “DeshDosh24,” with the same claim of showing an extortion scene. The post read, “Several men are seen brandishing weapons in broad daylight, extorting money by instilling fear.” By the time this report was published, that post had been shared more than 1,000 times and had received more than 2,000 reactions.

Beyond Facebook, the video was also spread with the same claim on the social media platform X and the video-sharing platform YouTube (1, 2).

To verify the claim, several keyframes from the video were used to conduct a reverse image search, which led to a video of the same scene on a profile named “Sk Shahin.” The caption of that video post read, “Shooting video. Director Shahin. Villain.”

The video was posted on the “Sk Shahin” profile at 5:59pm on September 12, before it began circulating with claims of showing an extortion scene starting on September 13.

Several other shooting-related videos were also found on the “Sk Shahin” profile (1, 2, 3). One video shows a trailer created using scenes of armed rehearsal alongside background music. The post read, “Director Ashis Kumar Milon Shahin. Coming this week.” In another video, the cameraman is heard shouting, “Action,” while filming. The profile also contained multiple images resembling movie posters (1, 2).

In other words, the scene showing a group rehearsing with sharp weapons does not depict a real extortion incident, but rather a scene from a film shoot.

In early August, another video from the “Sk Shahin” Facebook profile had similarly been spread with a claim of “extortion.” A fact-checking organization, Rumor Scanner, subsequently verified the video and published a report on it.

All social media captions, quotations, and news excerpts in this article have been translated into English from the languages in which they were originally posted or published.