A claim is going viral on the social media platform X. The claim states that many Indians are arrested in Iran for spying for the Israeli Intelligence Agency Mossad. A user on X, with the username ‘@thelivetvnews’ claimed that (translated in English) “73 Indians arrested in Iran for spying for Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad”.
Another user with the username ‘@IntelPk_’ on X claimed that “Iran Arrests Four Indians Linked to Israeli Spy Network in Tehran”.
Fact Check
After the claim went viral, DFRAC conducted a detailed research on the same. We discovered that the viral claim is FAKE. When the claim was searched on Google no exact results were found.
We searched through all the social media accounts of all the officials and the government of Iran, Israel and India. No such statement was released anywhere.
Then we looked for any credible media report to confirm the claim. A media report was published by ‘Press TV’, the official Iranian news channel. The report stated that it had arrested and even executed a spy but it did not mention any of the spy being an Indian.
Another media report by an Israeli news channel ‘The Jerusalem Post’ confirmed the arrest of Israeli spies, but no spy was recognised as an Indian.
Lastly, we also looked for any such media report from Indian news channels confirming the claim. We found a media report by ‘Times of India’ with the headline “Iran Executes Mossad’s Spy, Arrests Two More As War With Israel Rages”. But there also no statement was given regarding any Indian being arrested as an Israeli spy.
Conclusion
Hence, we confirmed that Iran indeed arrested spies working for Israel’s Intelligence Agency Mossad. But none of those spies was recognised as an Indian as we have no official statement or credible media report to confirm that statement.
