Lebanese Judge Charges 12 in TikTok Gang Case: Children Lured and Abused Online (December 2023)

In the context of the terrible case of the TikTok gang in Lebanon, a Lebanese judge charged 12 people in an international network suspected of luring young people online andForce them He then blackmailed them, a legal source told Agence France-Presse. The publication of this case last week, especially on local television channels and social media sites, caused anger on the streets of Lebanon.

The judicial source told Agence France-Presse yesterday, Thursday, that the members of this network used “electronic applications, especially Tik Tok,” as well as “fake names,” and that they deliberately ” luring small children, abusing them, threatening to kill them. , they forced, and committed heinous acts.” The source said that “the Public Appeal Prosecutor in Mount Lebanon, Judge Tanios Saghbini, brought charges against 12 people, “including five people who were arrested from the TikTok group in Lebanon, and sent them to the investigative judge, “requesting that they be questioned. and that preliminary arrest warrants be issued against them. “

The same source explained that the owner of a barber shop in Lebanon and the owner of a clothing store living in Sweden were among the members of this criminal network. He said that several of these people wanted in Switzerland, Sweden, the Emirates, and Turkey, indicated that Lebanese judges would issue arrest warrants in absentia against them and forward them to the International Criminal Police Organization or Interpol.

It is suspected that the people who want to “create a criminal network for human trafficking and money laundering (…) and use electronic applications, especially TikTok, using false names,” according to Lebanese legal source, who confirms that they “abused” children to take narcotics. The criminal network also includes a lawyer, as well as a taxi driver who gave the children to the flats where they were attacked.

At the beginning of this May, another judicial source told Agence France-Presse that at least 28 people have been identified (so far) (six of them have been arrested) as members of the multi-headed group TikTok in Lebanon , who “hired a professional. teenagers from outside Lebanon.” To attract children” through that ​​electronic application. The General Directorate of Internal Security Forces announced that day that among the six arrested were “three youths who are popular on the TikTok application,” and that “Lebanese, Syrian and They are Turkish. “

(AFP)