Scandal in France: investigation opened into alleged child trafficking listings on Vinted
The Nantes prosecutor's office has opened a preliminary investigation following reports of suspicious listings on the Vinted online selling platform, suspected of being linked to child trafficking.
Scandal in France: investigation opened into alleged child trafficking listings on Vinted
The Nantes prosecutor's office has opened a preliminary investigation to examine reports concerning listings published on the Vinted online selling platform, suspected of being linked to child trafficking. The case has been referred to the Central Office for the Repression of Violence Against Persons (Ofmin).
The suspicions arose after social media users reported listings they considered strange. These posts offered toys or items apparently of little value, but displayed at particularly high prices. They also mentioned ages and heights which, according to those reporting them, could correspond to young children.
The matter gained considerable momentum on social media, particularly on TikTok, where content creators argued that elements such as a price of €30,000 for a Harry Potter figurine, combined with mentions such as "13 years old" and "1.58 m", could constitute coded messages related to child trafficking.
Sarah El Haïry, State Secretary responsible for Childhood, announced on Tuesday that she had alerted the competent authorities about suspicious accounts involved in this phenomenon via Vinted, after previously contacting the reporting platform Pharos and regulator Arcom.
On Thursday, the newspaper 20 Minutes called an article published the previous day "disastrous", which reported that a journalist had conversed with a man claiming to sell a young girl through an apparently innocent listing. The newspaper, however, published a correction on Friday, clarifying that it was actually a 17-year-old secondary school student who had posted the listing in order to trap, according to his account, "paedophiles".
To date, the prosecutor's office has not established whether any of the reported listings proved to be substantiated. Several sellers identified in the viral videos told AFP that their listings concerned genuine toys. For its part, Vinted stated that it had examined the publications in question and found no evidence linking them to child trafficking activities. The company clarified that the age mentioned in the listings refers to the target age range for the toy, whilst the high prices would be explained by the collectible value of certain items, provocative posts or negotiation tactics. Vinted also reaffirmed its zero-tolerance policy towards any inappropriate content and its cooperation with law enforcement when necessary.
Source: Philenews
Source: Philenews