Social media claims have revealed a video of a Coca-Cola van ‘full of children’ being arrested for illegal human trafficking in the US state of Illinois. This is not true; the fragment comes from a toy drive supported by a police association in neighboring Iowa, and the department confirmed there is no ongoing criminal investigation at the location.
“Coca Cola truck full of children found!” says an Instagram post from December 16, 2024 with more than 190,000 likes.
In the post, the user claims that the video was shot in Cicero, Illinois, and shows local police emptying a truck that had been transported unlawfully children.
Screenshot from Instagram taken on December 18, 2024
The same video and false claim is circulating elsewhere on Instagram, FacebookThreads, TikTok, Bluesky, YouTube, Rumble and Gettr – also in Spanish and French.
The user – who also runs a TikTok account under the name FamousCooleyCarter – posted a day later that initial claims of child trafficking were false, but that police had found two children in the truck abandoned by a woman in Decatur, Illinois.
Both the claims of child trafficking and child abandonment are false.
In part of the video, a branch of US tire retailer Firestone can be seen behind the Coca-Cola van and police cruisers.
If you do a keyword search for “Firestone” and “Coca-Cola Truck,” you will come across a local news article about a December 14 toy drive hosted by a local police association in Davenport, Iowa, where residents were encouraged to donate gifts to children and families in need (archived here).
The event took place in the parking lot of NorthPark Mall near a Firestone and JC Penney branch in Davenport.
Owen Farrell, a spokesman for the Davenport Police Department, said the video was recorded during the Iowa toy drive on Dec. 18. He said there was “no criminal investigation” at the site and that claims about the images of human trafficking or child abandonment were untrue. ‘false’ and ‘fake news’.
Farrell also said the ride has been in the same mall parking lot for 22 years.
Police posted several photos to the department’s Facebook page during and after the event, showing the Coca-Cola truck — from a local drinks distributor sponsoring the campaign –– and police cruisers in the same location.
Screenshot from Facebook taken on December 18, 2024
Google Maps street view footage taken in June 2021 near the Davenport Firestone branch also shows the same buildings, traffic lights and infrastructure as in the video posted to social media (archived here).
The Decatur, Illinois Police Department’s daily bulletin also lists no arrests for child abandonment, endangerment or similar charges between December 14 and December 18 at 1930 GMT (archived here).
AFP contacted Decatur police, but the office declined to comment.
AFP has debunked other false claims about human trafficking.
