Urban myth: Unsubstantiated rumors about white “kidnapping” vans stoke fear around the world

Screengrab of a Dec. 7, 2019 Twitter post (with the location tagged as Chicago in the US) which had 219,300 retweets and 175,800 likes.

By Michelle Lim

Warnings about white vans kidnapping people in the U.S. have been widely shared on social media including Facebook and Twitter in 2019.

The rumors claim that white vans are being used to kidnap women and children for human trafficking or harvesting their organs.

Screengrab of a Dec. 5, 2019 Twitter post from a user in the U.S. claiming a white van abducted a girl at the First Colony Mall, which received 2,200 retweets and 2,400 likes.

Screengrab of a Nov. 22, 2019 Facebook post (with the location tagged as Philadelphia in the U.S.) which had 21 shares

Such rumors are not new and have surfaced regularly in similar forms on social media.

Jack Young, the mayor of the U.S. city of Baltimore, for example, referred to the warnings on Facebook during an interview on Dec. 2, saying that there were reports “of somebody in a white van trying to snatch up young girls for human trafficking and selling body parts.”

The interview on WBAL-TV 11 Baltimore is available on YouTube.

Similar claims have circulated in France and the Philippines.

Screengrab of Facebook posts from September and October 2019 in French about white vans (camionnette blanche) kidnapping children in France

Rumors debunked

Authorities in the U.S., France and the Philippines have all denied the unsubstantiated claims.

Several media outlets in those countries have also debunked the rumors.

Screengrab of a Dec. 6, 2019 tweet from the First Colony Mall responding to the user @kyxkristine

Screengrab of a Dec. 10, 2019, CNN Philippines Twitter post, which quoted a Philippine national police spokesman saying investigations showed that some people shared similar videos just to scare the public

Screengrab of Facebook post by the Newnan Police Department confirming that the department had looked into two reports of a driver of a white van acting suspiciously and stating there were no reports of a kidnapping or attempted abduction.

In November 2019 in the U.S. city of Albany, Georgia, a witness admitted to making a false kidnapping claim.

Screengrab of WALB News10 website regarding a case where police said a reported kidnapping involving a suspicious white van was a false claim

Old urban myth likely to continue

It is unclear when and where the urban myth first originated, but even back in May 2011, Le Parisien, a French daily newspaper, reported a rumor about the kidnapping of children involving a van and organ trafficking, which had been circulating in schools — despite the lack of evidence.

White vans are relatively common vehicles in many countries. Some of the social media posts circulating the rumors use stock photographs of white vans or photographs of random white vans on the street.

In some cases, the rumors have led to harassment and violence. In France, the police had to debunk rumors of children being kidnapped after two people in a white van were beaten up by a crowd.

What makes such a story believable could be that on rare occasions, such kidnapping cases do happen.

Most of the time, though, the rumors are unsubstantiated.

Though they don’t involve white vans, stories about child kidnapping gangs are quite common in many Asian countries.

In recent years, innocent people have been mistaken as kidnappers and lynched to death in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka after false warnings and fake videos were widely shared through messaging apps and social media platforms.

Disclaimer: This is a student work. Although JMSC faculty members have done everything possible to verify its accuracy, we cannot guarantee there are no mistakes. If you notice an error or have any questions, please email us at contact@annieasia.org.