
An investigation reveals how deceptive social media content is luring migrants to the Spanish enclave with false promises.
An investigation reveals that interconnected Instagram accounts are using deceptive 'mirage' content to lure migrants from Morocco to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, charging fees for unsafe crossing advice.
AI-generated summary
Roughly 78,000 migrants arrived by sea into Ceuta from Morocco in a matter of hours last month. Social media content has been driving further migrant influxes.
This weekend, Mohammed wants to travel from Morocco to the neighbouring Spanish enclave of Ceuta, on the northern tip of Africa.
He's a Moroccan man in his twenties and wants to emigrate to Europe - not least because he's been seeing lots of videos on Instagram that make the trip look easy.
He contacts several of the Instagram accounts and one replies, claiming to have helped "many people" and offering him advice on how to cross for hundreds of pounds.
Except Mohammed isn't real - he's a dummy account I've set up to investigate a network of interconnected Instagram profiles that are driving the influx of migrants to Ceuta with aspirational content and offering them help for a fee.
It comes after roughly 78,000 migrants from Morocco arrived by sea into Ceuta in a matter of hours last month, 100 of whom died according to the Mayor of Ceuta.
The crisis has calmed since, but it has sparked tensions between EU nations who share open borders as well as criticism of the Spanish government.
The BBC's Top Comment podcast has identified dozens of Instagram profiles that portray the short swim around the Morocco-Ceuta border fence as safe and easy - but in reality, people have drowned trying to make the crossing and take much longer routes. The accounts also wrongly show Ceuta as a viable route to mainland Europe.
Our research suggests that this has contributed to the influx, alongside other factors such as misinformation about changes to Spanish immigration law and allegations about weak border controls.
After engaging with the accounts' profiles and posts, the BBC was added to multiple channels and WhatsApp groups. When I asked one of the anonymous accounts if they could help me cross to Ceuta this weekend, they said yes and requested "5000 dirhams upfront" (£400) for "information that will help you enter Ceuta".
They said they had helped "many people" cross before and would give me information about the "sewer pipes" which I could use to help me reach the enclave safely.
The account confirmed lots of other Instagram profiles help people to cross to Ceuta in this way, and asked for payment "via bank account" with a specific money transfer service.
But they didn't respond when asked whether I would get a refund if the crossing was not successful. They've since deleted several of their messages to the account.
I first noticed the deluge of content about Ceuta when I saw a viral video showing two women in wetsuits walking through the city.
While the original post in Spanish sought to dissuade migrants from arriving in Ceuta with the caption "Ceuta can't take it anymore", some versions shared by Moroccan and Arabic-speaking accounts either changed the caption or cropped it out, so the clip only showed the women strolling freely.
This was just one of hundreds of posts that we are calling "mirage" content, which paint a deceptive picture of a place distinct from reality.
Some videos show groups of young men and women swimming happily in the sea - even though many have drowned making the trip in recent weeks.
Others show stories of people who have succeeded in reaching Ceuta - and then claim they have gone on to reach Spain or mainland Europe, despite about 75,000 of the 78,000 arrivals having been returned to Morocco by authorities.
The accounts have managed to manipulate the algorithms on major social media sites by sharing emotive and hopeful content to gain more traction.
Insiders at the biggest social media companies have previously told me how posts triggering a strong reaction are more likely to go viral.
When I tried to contact some of these profiles using my own account, some of them directed me to the same WhatsApp numbers or email addresses.
My dummy account, Mohammed, was a profile set to private and designed to look similar to the accounts of younger Moroccan people who were liking and commenting on the posts advertising crossings. I followed relevant content, including several of the Haraga profiles, and soon my feed was swamped with videos and content encouraging travel to Ceuta.
There appears to be a wider trend here, where people looking to charge migrants money for advice can easily set up profiles and game social media algorithms.
While there have been Facebook groups and accounts on other major social media sites posting about Ceuta, it was on Instagram where I found the most active and prevalent group of interconnected accounts.
The new-found reach of these profiles, facilitated by Instagram's algorithms, opens them up to a wider pool of paying clients.
It is yet another example of how gaming an algorithm can fuel real-world harm.

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