A dog with rust-colored fur lay on the side of the road. He looked calm, but as the TikTok video moved from his face to other parts of his body, he suffered serious injuries to his back legs.
Dogs don’t get a break. He was panting, probably in pain.
Text in the 15-second clip told viewers the dog had “been in an accident” and asked them to donate via an online link to “save his life.”
In the three weeks after the video was first posted on January 8 last year, the dog appeared in hundreds of other fundraisers and at least a dozen accounts.
A social media user from the UK named the dog “Russet”, reflecting the color of his fur. Thousands of dollars were raised for his treatment. But he never got better.
BBC Africa Eye has discovered that the dog in Uganda was a prop in a scam to solicit donations for animals in distress, part of a hidden industry that profits from cruelty.
The cause of Lasseter’s injuries could not be determined, but BBC World Service reporters managed to piece together parts of his story which suggested that whatever the cause, he was suffering from long-term pain.
This story connects a small town in Uganda to animal lovers thousands of miles away. They trick them into giving up their money through emotional imagery, lies and exploiting Western stereotypes of Africa, such as widespread poverty and widespread disregard for animal welfare.
But it’s dogs like Russet who pay the biggest price.
He was photographed in Mityana, a trading center about 70 kilometers (43 miles) from Uganda’s capital, Kampala.
The town has gained notoriety among online animal rescue activists around the world for one thing – fake dog rescue shelters.
Ugandan scammers have realized how popular dogs are in Europe, North America and Australia, and how easily social media obsession with dogs can be converted into cash.
“There are some young people [Ugandan] Bart Kakooza, president of the Uganda Animal Welfare Society, told the BBC.
“On the other hand, in the Western world, people are very passionate about animals. These young people realize that if they can raise dogs, they can make money.”
It is impossible to determine how many social media accounts are operated by Mityana. But overall, they’ve posted numerous videos on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube of pitiful-looking animals — mostly dogs and cats, and even rabbits — with comments pleading for donations to shelter, feed and treat them.
Scammers flood social media with calls for funds [BBC]
A typical video involves a person displaying some dogs in a makeshift structure with messages such as “Our dogs are hungry” or “Another day without food at the shelter” and “Please help us.”
These clips often draw on content that content creators believe will resonate with viewers’ existing perceptions of Africa, depicting it as a place where food is scarce and where young dog lovers must fight against odds to protect the animals from social hostility and neglect.
Data analysis by BBC Africa Eye shows that these videos are effective at converting views into donations.
Over the past five years, our research shows that more than $730,000 (£540,000) has been raised for animal shelters in Uganda through hundreds of fundraisers posted on donation platform GoFundMe.
Nearly 40% of all fundraising events analyzed by the BBC were related to Mityana.
In town, the fake dog shelter business is an open secret. Some residents told the BBC it was easy to spot the scammers.
“When you see a young man driving a Subaru [a status symbol car in the area]you know he’s a liar,” one said.
Another said: “The liar is the most respected man in Mityana”.
But few residents are willing to speak publicly about specific shelter operations because they fear retaliation. The BBC decided to send an undercover team to Mityana.
These reporters were posing as newcomers trying to get into the online dog shelter content business.
They discovered that some venues in the area were rented out to multiple content creators.
The shelter charges an admission fee to be photographed with the owner’s dog. The videos are then posted on the scammer’s social media accounts and affiliated online fundraisers, often with GoFundMe or PayPal links.
This means multiple different accounts using the same physical shelter and the same dogs to raise funds.
The BBC team gained access to one of the shelters, which was run by a young man who called himself Charles Lubajja.
At the shelter, reporters found about 15 dogs in the same cage, lying in their own excrement. Many appear severely underweight and lethargic.
Lubaja told the undercover reporter that the shelter’s main purpose was to make money from social media viewers abroad under false pretenses. He gave some advice on how to increase your income and shared some tips, including:
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Pretend landowner threatens to evict shelter and needs money to relocate it
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Filming fake veterinary treatments, such as putting syringes into a dog’s fur rather than giving real injections
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Dog food prices have increased more than 11 times.
“Once you receive GoFundMe money, you can use it to buy a car or build a house,” Lubaja said while being secretly filmed.
“Once you get white donors, don’t treat them as brothers. You have to squeeze them [take their money]. Drain them. “
But as fake surgeries like Lubaja’s spread across the Internet, more and more donors are starting to realize they’ve been duped. Various initiatives have since emerged to thwart scammers.
Activists’ tactics include raising awareness of potential contributors and naming and shaming accounts deemed to be the worst offenders.
Online campaigners also say the Mityana shelter is not just suffering from neglect but also from intentional harm to animals.
We Won’t Be Scammed is popular for its aggressive style, and the campaign’s Instagram account has about 20,000 followers.
In the secret filming, Lubaja himself mentioned this activity and described it as the “biggest problem” for scammers.
Nicola Baird says her dog Sebi inspired her campaign against fake animal shelters in Uganda [BBC]
What Lubajja may not know is that the account is run by a 49-year-old woman who lives some 10,000 kilometers away in Yorkshire, northern England.
Nicola Baird, founder of We Will Not Be Fooled, is fighting.
“These liars, I just have a hatred for them,” she told the BBC. “They are the epitome of evil.”
Like others in her network of 20 activists, Baird has been a victim. She sent money to a man in Mityana who said his dog needed surgery after a traffic accident.
When Baird received photos and videos of the dog allegedly undergoing surgery, she began to suspect something was wrong. The veterinarian she shared the photos with confirmed that they looked more like abuse than veterinary care. “That’s when I thought: ‘Oh my God, I’ve enabled this abuse.'”
“From that point on, I became really passionate about stopping the abuse because I felt they were abusing [my dog] Sebi – They are abusing my family. “
The experience convinced Baird that the injuries to the animals shown in the social media videos — including burns, cuts and even missing limbs — were intentional, a view shared by other online activist groups monitoring accounts linked to Mitiana.
Lubaja confirmed to the undercover team that there were indeed cases where scammers intentionally harmed dogs.
“When they ran out of content, some started cutting dogs and asking for money,” he said.
But he added that the escalation backfired when some donors began to see through the abuse and warn others.
“[Scammers] No more killing dogs [because] When white people realize this, they lose money. “
Baird admitted scammers’ tactics had changed due to increased scrutiny, but insisted dogs were still being intentionally harmed and were still at risk.
“All this pain is just for some donations,” she said. “No animal should have to live like this.”
We Will Not Be Fooled and other online activists believe the dog Lasseter, who was filmed on the side of the road and has appeared in dozens of fundraising videos, had his legs deliberately broken.
During the secret filming, Lubaja watched a video of Russet and recognized it as one of his dogs. When reporters pressed for more details, he said the dog had been involved in a traffic accident outside the shelter.
But that may not be the case.
After first appearing on social media, Lasseter’s photo was posted on several different accounts, making it appear he was moved from one scam ring to another.
About three weeks later, an unnamed British social media user and donor successfully negotiated Lasseter’s release from the scammers to a veterinary clinic in Kampala.
Dr Isa Lutebemberwa traveled to Mityana to pick up the dog and took it to his clinic, which is funded by UK donors.
Russet’s treatment included surgery to repair his broken leg [BBC]
Lutebenbewa believes the likelihood that Lasseter was injured in the accident is low. Describing X-rays of Russet’s lower body, he said: “If you look at the bones, they’re all broken in pretty much the same place.
“If you were interested in breaking a bone, you would choose this location because it is the weakest.”
Lutebemberwa performed the surgery on Russet. He survived the surgery but died a few days later.
“If you look at his face you can see he was in a lot of pain,” Lutbenbewa told the BBC. “Considering everything he went through, he didn’t deserve to die.”
“Russet showed me the pain a dog can endure.”
The BBC contacted Lubaja for comment on the findings. Lubaja told the undercover reporter that he was the owner of Russet.
When Lasseter sent the photo with the accusation, he said he did not recognize the dog and denied harming the animal. He admitted that content creators paid to film at his sanctuary.
If you’re outside the UK, you can watch the documentary at Youtube Or listen to the podcast here.
Other animal activists in Uganda, including Lutbembewa and Kakuza, partly blame international donors for the suffering of dogs at the Mityana shelter, saying they often donate impulsively and without adequate scrutiny.
“People who donate money contribute to the animal cruelty problem here because they keep adding fuel to the fire and adding fuel to the fire,” Kakuza said.
Baird agreed that donations may have inadvertently caused harm: “I think the message we have to take away from Lasseter’s abuse is that donations prolonged his suffering. If people hadn’t donated, Lasseter wouldn’t have suffered as long as he did.”
Most animal activists in Uganda and beyond believe that increased awareness among social media users and potential donors will reduce donations flowing to the Mityana shelter. This will reduce scammers’ earnings and the industry’s appeal to young people, and lead to fewer new dogs being caught for scams.
Yet few can point to concrete solutions for the dogs currently in shelters.
Mityana police told the BBC that a 2023 operation rescued 24 severely injured dogs held in poor conditions in fake shelters in the town and transferred them to Kampala for treatment.
Three suspects arrested during the operation were charged with animal cruelty before being released. Their files were later closed and they were given warnings.
Now, an international coalition of activists, including Kakuza, is trying to resolve the issue through private prosecutions. One of these is already underway.
“We hope this case will act as a deterrent to many others who wish to continue engaging in the illegal trade,” he told the BBC.
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[Getty Images/BBC]
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