The 60 Minutes Lebanon abduction drama just got more dramatic – with the child abduction agency involved in the story accused of having appropriated random photos of children.
The child recovery group featured on the controversial 60 Minutes ending in several arrests earlier this month allegedly used random images pictures of two children on its Facebook page, claiming it had saved the children on rescue missions, Daily Mail Australia reports.
One of those images was actually an old stock photo, and another was a random tourist snap taken in 2012, Daily Mail Australia reports.
Image: Facebook, via Daily Mail
In one of those instances, the group - Child Abduction Recovery International (CARI) - reportedly posted picture of a small girl named "Alake" to Facebook and claimed it had just rescued her.
"This little bundle of joy couldn’t stop smiling after seeing her mother," CARI's Facebook post read. "She was taken in extreme circumstances over 7 months ago from her mothers (sic) arms and was not heard of again."
But Daily Mail has found that the photograph of so-called "Alake" is a Getty Images stock photo, which can be easily found by searching the term "picture of little black child girl" in Google.
The same stock image was even used on the front cover of a book published in 2010, Natural, Beautiful and Curly: Hairstyles & Hair Care for Black and Bi-Racial Children by Claudia Campos.
CARI's 2014 Facebook post of "Alake" has now been deleted.
Screenshot: Getty Images
The agency is also claimed to have rescued a particular child in Thailand, when in fact the boy pictured was allegedly a random child in a tourist photo from Laos.
"CARI operatives worked in a joint operation with Thailand police and immigration to successfully locate and recover a young baby taken by the father from Singapore (picture attached with approval of mother)," a post on CARI's Facebook page from July 2014 read.
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Top Comments
no sympathy whatsoever, for the (so called) mother, ch nine or the abduction company. hope they all get made an example of.
Not surprised. The mother abandoned a 3 month old newborn for money and publicity, Tara Brown is absolute scum and has form giving attention and sympathy to bad people (Belle Gibson) and twisted and editing facts for a story (Cameron Smith/Alex McKinnon) - I kept up with other news sources OUTSIDE Australia, and got the TRUE facts. Yes, I know, this will be another one not posted.
Agree with everything you've said
She did NOT abandon her 3 month old. It was supposed to be a quick trip, the end result being the safe return of her children that were kidnapped under the guise of a holiday. It was a desperate mission, undertaken by many parents in the same situation.
You can think what you want about Tara Brown, but how dare you imply that this poor mother, who traveled across the road to retrieve her children, abandoned her baby!
Totally agree.
You reap what you sow.
I couldn't disagree more. I cannot understand why there are those who fail to summon within them, compassion for a woman faced with the desperate choice of otherwise never seeing her children again. I would move heaven and earth to see my precious babies and the pain and fear would ensure I did not nourish or rest until I did.