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A VIDEO SHOWING a large pile of meat cuts has been shared online, with descriptions falsely implying it shows the results of Romanians shoplifting in Ireland.
However, there is no evidence for either the video showing the results of shoplifting, or for the video being filmed in Ireland. The TikTok account that initially posted the video also posted footage the same day that is verified to have been filmed in Germany.
“Small businesses are on their knees with stock loss all over the country from swarms of human locusts that contribute nothing!” reads a Facebook post featuring the video, posted by Off-Grid Ireland, a fringe anti-migrant account, on 12 June.
The video shows about five people, including one child, standing beside a large pile of packaged meat.
The post, viewed more than 65,000 times, also includes the hashtags #ireland and #dublin.
Hundreds of comments appear under the video and many assume that the people in the video were Romanian and had shoplifted the food. “Send them back to Romania,” reads one comment liked 58 times. “So proud of being thieves,” reads another.
The video originally was posted on 9 June on the TikTok account of a user called Deny. Like all her videos, it contains no description other than emojis and tagged users. There is no indication that the video was filmed in Ireland.
With more than 322,800 views, it is by far the user’s most viewed video posts. And comments under the video indicate that many of its viewers are from Ireland.
“We in Ballymena know how to sort this problem,” reads one comment with more than 153 likes, referring to riots that targeted foreign-nationals, particularly Romanians, in Northern Ireland last week.
Another account, whose profile picture is an Irish tricolour, commented: “best shop lifters in Europe”.
Some posts implied that the video was filmed in Belgium or Germany.
The uploader often makes posts with music by or associated with Roma people, who largely reside in Eastern Europe (including Romania, but also Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, and Slovakia).
Despite commenters inferring that the video shows the result of shoplifting, there is no evidence of this in the footage. The impracticality of stealing about 20 kilograms of perishable raw meat during warm weather also raises doubts.
In any case, there are strong reasons to believe that the video was filmed outside Ireland, such as the meat packaging not being identifiable as a brand sold in Ireland.
Shortly before posting the meat video, the same account posted footage from inside a moving vehicle. Road signs in that video shows that the video was filmed north of Hamburg, Germany, at the time.
Other videos since posted on the account, as well as by a man seen in many of the videos, who appears to be the partner of Deny, also indicate that they are still on mainland Europe.
Post demonising Romanians have been rampant in online anti-immigrant groups following the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl by two Romanian-speaking boys – an event that prompted riots across Northern Ireland last week.
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