A sensational article being widely shared on social media claims that during the live broadcast of the talk show "I AM with Dhanya Varma", the namesake host called cricketer Sanju Samson a liar in front of thousands of viewers.
The article published on a website that resembles the BBC, with former BBC journalist Jane Wakefield’s byline, also calimed that Samson endorsed the trading platform “Immediate 9.1 Alrex” on the talk show, adding that after the cricketer signed up the host to this platform and deposited Rs 26,000, which grew to Rs 31,094 in only 30 minutes.
A Facebook user shared this report with the caption, “A hard day for India: We say goodbye to Sanju Samson”.
India Today Fact Check found that this article is fake. Sanju Samson didn’t promote any such trading platform on Dhanya Varma’s talk show. Jane Wakefield too confirmed that she had not written this article.
OUR PROBE
The first thing we noticed was that the URL of the viral website pretending to be the BBC was not bbc.com but undernwmeo.com/X9Jpjj. Also searching for the headline “I AM management refuses to comment on the scandal surrounding its show I AM with Dhanya Varma” did not yield any BBC reports.
None of the categories on the fake websites — “Home”, “War in Ukraine”, “Climate”, “Video”, “World” — were clickable. They appeared to be setdressing to make the website resemble the BBC.
All the hyperlinks in the site lead to a new web page where you are asked to enter details like name, email address, and phone number. This made it clear this was a phishing scam. We entered dummy information here and received the pop-up message: “Make sure to wait for an operator to call you, they will call you in less than 10 minutes”. Following this message, our browser flashed a warning that certain attackers might be trying to steal information, like passwords or credit card details.
(Paste: GIF 2 here)
DID SANJU SAMSON SPEAK ABOUT ANY TRADING PLATFORM DURING AN INTERVIEW?
The images of Sanju Samson and Dhanya Varma used in the viral reports have been taken from the videos of a talk show “I am with Dhanya Varma”. Sanju’s three-part interview was uploaded on the official YouTube channel of this show in November 2023. They spoke in English and Malayam. At no point in the interview did the cricketer or the interviewer mention any trading platform.
Next, we contacted Dhanya Varma. She told India Today Fact Check that the article was completely baseless. She also added that no such conversation happened with Sanju, before, during, or after the recording of the show.
WHAT DID JANE WAKEFIELD SAY ABOUT THIS?
We also reached out to the former BBC journalist Jane Wakefield and asked her about the viral article with her byline. She told us that she did not write this article and denied ever interviewing Sanju Samson.
Notably, similar fake articles with Jane’s byline have made the rounds on social media before as well. India Today debunked one such article that you can read here.
(With inputs from Sreejisha Laila)
Published By:
Ashutosh Acharya
Published On:
Jun 7, 2024
English (US) ·