A gruesome and disturbing video from Brazil showing a woman being hacked to death with a pick-axe is being falsely shared on social media with a claim that it is from India.
The 31-seconds long clip shows a masked assailant attacking a woman whose hands are tied and mouth gagged.
BOOM has chosen not to include the video given its extremely disturbing nature.
The clip is being shared with text that claims it is from India.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the incident in the video is from Fortaleza, Brazil where a 23-year-old woman named Thália Torres de Souza, was kidnapped and killed by members of a criminal faction.
We analysed the video and spotted the logo with 'fort-' partially visible on red top the woman wore. We found that the victim had worn a Brazilian football club's Fortaleza Esporte Clube jersey. This indicated that the clip is from Brazil and not India.
We did a key-word search in Portuguese and performed a reverse image search using Google which showed that the viral clip was being shared on gore websites that host graphic content. The descriptions on these websites also stated it was from Brazil.
A blog had another image of the woman in the same jersey and denim shorts lying on the ground, however it was taken at night and identified her as a 23-year-old Thália Torres de Souza.
On searching with the name 'Thália Torres de Souza' we found a report dated September 1, 2020, by the Cn7 website which stated that de Souza was kidnapped and killed by members of a criminal faction in Fortaleza, Ceara state in Brazil.
The article details that in the month of August, 17 women were murdered in Ceará state in Brazil, and in the year there have already 226 women who have been killed. It further states that Thália was kidnapped in the Bom Jardim neighborhood and taken to the neighboring Granja Portugal on August 26, 2020.
Translated from Portuguese
It details that Thália was tied up with ropes, gagged and carried by force, at gunpoint, taken to the margins of the Maranguapinho River, and executed cruelly there with an axe and stones hit on the head which was filmed by the criminals.
This matches with the viral video where she is being filmed tied up being killed with an axe. Her body was found hours later, with his head smashed and her hands tied stated Cn7.
The clothes mentioned in the article that was found on the body also match the viral video. Cn7 states that the murderers are still at large and the Department of Homicide and Personal Protection (DHPP) in Fortaleza is investigating the case. It also mentions that there is a suspicion of a 'gang reckoning' behind the murder.
We found the victim's Facebook account which has a profile picture of her with the same Fortaleza Esporte Clube t-shirt, which confirmed that she is the same woman in the viral video.
We also found condolence messages left on her posts and a Facebook post by Feminicídio - Parem de nos matar, a Facebook page which posts on femicides had posted about her murder case on September 1, 2020.
BOOM could not independently verify the incident, however, we could confirm that the murder took place in Brazil and not India as being falsely claimed.
BOOM has previously fact-checked gruesome clips from Brazil that have been passed off as India.
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