Scams.&.Scandals.S2024E05.The.Child.Rescue.Con
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00:00It was probably one of our highlights for the year, rescuing her, and it was just really
00:09a needle in a haystack type of situation.
00:12A one-day-old baby that our awesome team rescued just before being trafficked.
00:22Millions of children are victims of trafficking around the world.
00:25It could have gone both ways, but we did manage to spot her and rescue her immediately.
00:32So that was an awesome, awesome effort.
00:35In 2022, a charity called Project Rescue Children said it rescued a newborn baby from traffickers
00:42at a busy marketplace in the Gambia, West Africa.
00:46When you are aware of such an incident, you're supposed to report it to the authority.
00:51The charity said it adopted the baby, placing her in one of its rescue centres.
00:57So she's in a family unit, so she's not just with one or two individuals.
01:02She's with a family unit.
01:04The head of the charity is Adam Whittington, a former Metropolitan Police officer who now
01:09spends his days posting updates of his charity's work around the world.
01:13I'll also confirm now everything I state is factual, as in all my posts and videos.
01:21But the BBC has analysed his social media accounts, uncovering false and misleading posts, and find
01:28that he's exploiting vulnerable people to solicit funds from abroad.
01:32It pains my heart that someone is using the photos of my child to source for money.
01:44Stop him.
01:45If he's doing that in other countries, stop him.
01:47Because he's not doing good things, he should be stopped.
01:51It's a story about deception and manipulation.
01:53You know, at the end he was just trying to use me and then I can feel that he was trying
01:58to put me and my family into problem.
02:00A story that Adam Whittington has tried desperately to stop from being broadcast.
02:18I'm Hayley Mortimer.
02:19I'm a reporter based in the UK.
02:22I first came across Project Rescue Children while working on a different story in The Gambia.
02:29I saw their posters stuck to a wall near a beach.
02:32Curious, I searched the name online and came across Adam Whittington and all of his videos.
02:40Hundreds of thousands of children go missing from many countries around the world and never
02:46get found.
02:48So it's very concerning and that's why I thought I'd do a quick video.
02:51I was so impressed that I asked him to be part of the documentary I was making.
02:56We spoke on the phone and he seemed interested, but then he suddenly changed his mind and blocked
03:01me from following any more of his content online.
03:05My search to find out why has taken me across Africa, uncovering a web of lies.
03:10Adam Whittington is a British Australian citizen.
03:21He started working with children after leaving the police.
03:25He set up a company retrieving children taken abroad by a parent following a custody dispute.
03:32But his tactics are controversial.
03:35What's worse than a paedophile?
03:36A UK court described him as a mercenary.
03:40He's been accused of pepper spraying a grandfather in Poland and was jailed in Singapore after attempting
03:46to grab a toddler.
03:48But it was in Lebanon that Adam got himself in real trouble.
03:53Now last month the authorities in Lebanon released an Australian mother and a 60 Minutes TV crew
03:58accused of kidnapping two children involved in a custody dispute.
04:02Adam's team grabbed the young boy and girl, but the police caught up with them.
04:07Adam, the mother and a TV crew were all thrown in a Beirut jail facing kidnapping charges.
04:14The events were covered extensively in the Australian media.
04:17Now, the man at the centre of the operation, left to rot in a Beirut prison, Adam Whittington.
04:25How much of that was your fault?
04:27They just want to keep me quiet, honestly, they don't want the truth to come out.
04:33The mother and TV crew were all released swiftly.
04:36Adam was never prosecuted, but spent four months in jail, where he says he came up with
04:41the idea of starting a charity.
04:48At Project Rescue Children, we exist to rescue victims of child trafficking and exploitation,
04:55as we believe rescue is the first step to life of freedom.
05:00Adam registered PRC as a charity in Australia in 2017 and has since used social media and
05:07his website to raise money around the world.
05:10So I just firstly want to thank everybody, all of you, for supporting us.
05:15We can't do this without you guys.
05:17The amount of support we've received just over the last few months is astronomical.
05:24Adam's updates are unlike anything I've seen from a charity working with children.
05:29Some of it is too graphic to show, but his uncensored approach has seen his social media pages soar
05:37to over a million followers, and he's attracted celebrity support, like Sam Fares.
05:44She's a British TV personality with a huge online following.
05:48In 2023, she became a PRC ambassador and was taken to Uganda.
05:53I feel like being here, we really can make a difference.
05:58The plan would be to build more, and it just gets the children off the streets.
06:03She asked her millions of fans to donate money for a new PRC rescue centre in Uganda.
06:09It eventually reached £137,000.
06:18The rescue centre was to be built and run by Make A Child Smile, an NGO in Uganda that partnered with PRC in 2022.
06:27He asked me of some of the cases I've worked on, I sent him some of the work I've done so far,
06:34and then one day he actually told me that he would love to come to Uganda.
06:41He took pictures, I am going to sponsor them, I'm going to, you know, take care of them.
06:47To me, it was like a God answered prayer.
06:52Adam visited Uganda three times.
06:55He was taken to meet survivors of trafficking and police officers working on cases.
07:00But Alexander became concerned about what Adam was posting on social media,
07:05taking credit for child rescue operations that he hadn't been involved in.
07:10And I asked him, please, we need to be transparent.
07:14You have never done this operation. I think it's better you tell people the truth.
07:19Remember, celebrity Sam Fares told donors the money raised would pay for the construction of the Uganda Rescue Centre and its ongoing running costs.
07:29I was so excited. I was very happy.
07:32We thought this money can even run this shelter for a full year.
07:36PRC began sending money to make a child smile, a few thousand pounds at a time, but it wasn't enough.
07:43In the end, Alexander received around 58,000 pounds, less than half of what was raised by donors.
07:51Because at least they will know where the money has gone.
07:55And when I talked about it, Adam became furious.
07:59He went mad. He went mad.
08:02What you're trying to show here is absolute propaganda, lies, .
08:08So I hope you have a lot of money to go to court, because you're not going to get away with this, Alex.
08:13You are a two-faced snake, Alex. I don't work with snakes.
08:18So just give me the lawyer's details. You've wasted enough of our time.
08:23I would confidently say the rest of the money have been eaten by Adam Whittington and PLSC, actually.
08:30And I'm so sorry, actually, for the donors who donated towards this cause.
08:36And I apologise on behalf of every one of us who are involved into this.
08:41Construction in Uganda is currently on hold until Alexander can find a new partner and more money.
08:48Sam Fares sent us this statement.
08:52I am deeply appalled and heartbroken to learn that not all the funds have reached these poor children as we were promised they would.
09:00I urge Adam Whittington to do the right thing and release the remainder of the funds immediately to where they are so desperately needed.
09:07PRC told the BBC it sent funds which it deemed to be sufficient to complete the construction, but stopped sending money when it terminated its partnership with Make A Child Smile.
09:20It blamed Alexander's refusal to sign a contract and accused him of mismanaging the funds.
09:26It said the remaining money has been used to help other children.
09:30300 kilometres away, renovations to another PRC rescue centre were apparently already complete.
09:39It was time to see for myself.
09:41PRC says it has a rescue centre for trafficked and abused children on the outskirts of Kisumu.
09:52It's supposedly run by a woman known as Mama Jane and a sponsorship programme allowed people to send monthly payments to the children in its care.
10:01Within weeks of launch, all the children were sponsored.
10:07Mama Jane is a lady called Jane Gorey. She invites us into her home.
10:16We tell her we're from the BBC and we have questions about Project Rescue Children.
10:21She lets us in.
10:24This is Project Rescue Children's rescue centre in Kenya.
10:28It's meant to be a place where children who have been trafficked, sexually exploited or orphaned can come to be looked after.
10:35But there are no children here.
10:37And the owner of this house says it has never been a rescue centre.
10:41In fact, she's shown me round and it's just a house where her and her husband live.
10:45She tells me that she has provided food and shelter for some local children in need in the past.
10:52But she's never received any funding for that, not from PRC or anyone else.
11:01Jane tells us that her son, Cooper Gorey, was PRC's director in Kenya and that he brought Adam to visit her home.
11:09Adam said he wanted to build a rescue centre on her land.
11:12He came with food and footballs and took photographs of local children, but then never came back.
11:19She says he sent money to fix her roof, install solar panels and a new gate.
11:24He used pictures of this work online to promote the existence of a rescue centre.
11:29I feel very bad about it because he has come to seduce me with a few kids I gathered.
11:35He then goes and says he will come back.
11:38He says he will come back to put in water for us.
11:40And I gave him some land to build a home for those children who are orphaned and do not have parents.
11:45And so he's defaming me. He should compensate me for damaging my name.
11:49The children featured on PRC's website live nearby.
11:56Joseph's son Eugene was pictured.
11:59He was listed as a sponsored child who'd been orphaned, homeless or was a victim of trafficking or exploitation.
12:06Joseph tells me none of this is true.
12:09And should I get any chance to meet this person, I can ask him, whose right did you get to take the photo of my son to look for money we did not get personally?
12:22When the photo was taken, Eugene was told he would receive food at Mama Jane's house and money to pay for his school fees.
12:29And did they pay for his school?
12:32No, nothing. There's nothing there for him.
12:36Not long after Eugene's photograph was taken, he became sick and died.
12:42But his picture remained online and according to PRC's website, people continued to sponsor him.
12:49It pains my heart that someone is using the photos of my child to source for money that I personally do not even eat or taste.
12:58Adam Whittington came to Kenya promising to help. Instead, he preyed on the people who live here.
13:09There is no PRC rescue centre because there are no rescued children.
13:13And Jane Gorey had no idea that her name and her house were being used to raise money online.
13:20Mama Jane and the rescue centre is really important to us and especially myself.
13:32When we put our findings to PRC, it told us that it stands by its claim that Jane Gorey's home is a PRC rescue centre that's used to assist children.
13:42It said that all funds and invoices for work carried out there were submitted to the Australian Charity Commission and that there were no missing or misused funds.
13:52It described our allegations as completely without merit, misleading and defamatory.
13:58It's not long before the news of our visit to Kenya gets back to Adam Whittington and he posts about me on his social media.
14:09The smear campaign she's directly involved with gets more amusing and ridiculous.
14:14Mortimer will soon learn being a journalist doesn't make you immune to the law.
14:18We are so happy to have declined your request to work with you.
14:23But Adam's reluctance to work with me in the Gambia may have been because he had something to hide.
14:36Three and a half thousand miles away from Kenya is a tiny country on the west coast of Africa, the Gambia.
14:45It's here that Adam Whittington says that he carried out the most unbelievable rescue mission.
14:50He says that his team received a tip-off that a newborn baby was going to be handed over to traffickers at a busy marketplace in the Gambia.
14:58When they saw two men carrying a basket, they decided to follow.
15:03The two men got spooked and ran away, dropping the basket on the floor.
15:07Inside, a newborn baby. They called her Marea. It means a miracle.
15:13She's doing so well and she's going to be completely taken under PRC's wing.
15:20After the rescue, Adam posted this picture of a baby wrapped in a gold blanket on social media.
15:27He told his followers that he'd adopted her and that she was being looked after at PRC's rescue centre in the Gambia.
15:34So she's in a family unit. So she's not just with one or two individuals. She's with a family unit.
15:41In the village.
15:42This is Alex Betts. She's a young woman from Southampton and a social media influencer.
15:47She was PRC's UK director and Adam asked her to adopt the child with him.
15:52A copy of a genuine birth certificate was posted on social media and Alex told her followers about her new child.
16:01She said,
16:02Our amazing organisation intercepted a beautiful baby girl from being sold to a human trafficking syndicate.
16:09We knew she was meant to be with us, raised by us at PRC.
16:14So Adam and I became mum and dad.
16:17Baby, I love you, dad. Baby, I love you, dad.
16:23Alex visited Maria at PRC's rescue centre in the Gambia.
16:27She took photos and videos playing with a beautiful baby girl and it went viral.
16:32Maria's story was seen by more than 40 million people around the world and the money came pouring in.
16:40But Alex became suspicious when Adam asked her to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
16:46And so she started to ask questions.
16:49And I'm under a direct attack from PRC to not only assassinate my character, but that unlawfully holding access, withholding access to my child.
17:14She stopped receiving updates about baby Maria and Adam went on the attack, branding Alex a drug addict who was wanted by police in the Gambia.
17:23Of course, this wasn't true.
17:26The baby, the child that I named, she bears my middle name, Maria Rose.
17:33I named her that.
17:40Alex really did believe that she'd adopted a baby rescued from traffickers.
17:45She began looking into PRC's activities and discovered this photograph of Maria had actually been taken from the internet.
17:52It had been posted by a maternity unit long before Maria had even been born.
17:59I'm sorry.
18:01How evil you have to be to put somebody through this torture.
18:06PRC said it used the image to protect the baby's true identity and said it apologized publicly for the confusion.
18:15It said it terminated its contract with Alex Betts because they felt she was exploiting children for social media gain.
18:22Alex told me she was recruited to PRC to bring social media attention to the organisation.
18:29She refutes the claims against her and says she's always acted with honest and pure intentions.
18:37So what happened here? A baby called Maria Whittington has been registered in the Gambia and Alex did meet a baby.
18:44So you cannot pick that child and give it to someone to adopt. That's illegal and it's a criminal offence.
18:50But the authorities in the Gambia have no knowledge of a newborn baby being rescued from traffickers.
18:57At the end of the day, you don't have an organisation that can simply, you know, take care of a trafficking in person without involving the authority.
19:06So having to fail to report, that's an issue of concealment and concealment is a crime.
19:15So today is a big day as we begin our search for baby Maria.
19:19Now our first stop is the location of Project Rescue Children's Rescue Centre.
19:24It's around an hour or so drive from the tourist area in the Gambia.
19:28And this is where Adam Whittington says that baby Maria is being looked after,
19:33along with other children who have been taken into their care.
19:36We were able to work out a rough location by piecing together information from photographs and documents Adam Whittington had posted online.
19:45So this is Project Rescue Children's Rescue Centre here in the Gambia and it's the same story as we found in Kenya.
19:54It's not a rescue centre, no children have ever lived here and the man who owns this property has told us it's just a family home.
20:01The property belongs to David Bass.
20:04His son Eboo Bass was recruited as PRC's director in the Gambia.
20:10PRC came here, it fixed David's roof and installed a fresh water supply.
20:15Volunteers brought footballs and food for the children who live nearby.
20:19And it was all documented on the charity's social media pages.
20:23They gather people, they gather kids.
20:25When they are here, they spend the whole surrounding village, children will spend the whole day here with them.
20:32David didn't know that PRC had used money raised for a rescue centre to renovate his house.
20:38There's no doubt it's improved life for his family, but it was meant to help rescue children, including baby Maria.
20:46And there's no sign of her here, but David says she does exist.
20:51But she doesn't live here?
20:52No, she doesn't live here.
20:53But she lives nearby?
20:54Yes.
20:55Back on the road, we arrive at a small village.
21:01We're just out of the car when we see a toddler.
21:04We recognise her immediately.
21:07God, who is that her?
21:10I just can't believe she's here.
21:13We've just... Oh, it's quite emotional actually.
21:16I know, yeah.
21:17And she's just so beautiful.
21:19Don't worry.
21:21Huh?
21:22She's wearing the same necklace in pictures we've seen of her online.
21:32So we've found baby Maria, and nothing we've been told about her is true.
21:36She wasn't rescued from traffickers at a busy marketplace.
21:39She was born right here, and she's been living here with her mother ever since.
21:44The mother didn't want to be identified, but told us that PRC approached her, saying there
21:49was a potential sponsor who wanted to meet her baby, which she agreed to.
21:54She never received any money, but she was given a small amount of groceries.
21:58She's doing so well, and she's going to be completely taken under PRC's wing.
22:05The mum was in complete disbelief about the stories being told about her child.
22:12So word spreads really fast in The Gambia.
22:14It's been just a couple of hours since we left the location of the rescue centre, and
22:19Ibu Bas has given us a call.
22:21He's confirmed much of what we already know.
22:23The rescue centre is just his family's house, and the story about baby Maria is completely untrue.
22:29You know, at the end he was just trying to use me, and then I can feel that he was trying
22:34to put me and my family into a problem.
22:37Ibu is no longer PRC's director in The Gambia.
22:40He's stopped talking to Adam, and says he's willing to tell us everything.
22:45Whose idea was it to say that Maria had been trafficked?
22:50It's Adam's idea, to be honest. It's Adam's idea.
22:55Adam was like, yeah, we definitely need a kid to put on the media.
22:59Why did you go along with that, though, Ibu?
23:02I didn't help Adam with the lie.
23:04I was just, you know, trying to be good to that child and our mum, trying to support the child.
23:11PRC faked the rescue of a newborn baby, and found a child to use as a prop, exploiting
23:18a vulnerable young mother to raise money.
23:20They pretended to house her in a rescue centre that doesn't exist.
23:25But if you want to operate, you don't have to operate dubiously in this country.
23:29You have to come through the normal process and normal registration.
23:33Lamins says multiple laws may have been broken, and is now working with the authorities in The Gambia
23:39to investigate Adam Whittington and Project Rescue Children.
23:43For how long have they been in the country? Where would be their official address or location?
23:50So if these things are not known to me, then that raises an issue of suspicion.
23:56PRC insists that Mireya's story is true, and told us that she was rescued by PRC
24:03in collaboration with the Gambian authorities.
24:06It maintains that the home of David Bass is a PRC rescue centre,
24:11and says that Mireya wasn't at the property because she was overseas visiting relatives.
24:16It's not been possible to find out what's happened to all the money raised for PRC,
24:26or where it's been spent.
24:28Adam Whittington has companies and charities set up in multiple countries,
24:33many of which have never filed any detailed accounts.
24:36But we do know that donations haven't reached their intended targets.
24:41Adam Whittington is currently living in Russia.
24:46He didn't respond to our request for an interview.
24:53Since we started our investigation, content's been removed from PRC's website,
24:58Adam's account has been banned by Instagram,
25:01and he instructed solicitors in Kenya, where he tried unsuccessfully,
25:06to block this programme from being broadcast.
25:09He's also launched an online campaign against me, calling me a liar and a rogue journalist.
25:16We also had news from the Australian Charity Commission.
25:19They told us PRC's charity status has been revoked.
25:26More countries are wanting our services, more requests for help from different parts of the world.
25:33Adam Whittington is currently travelling back and forth to the Philippines,
25:37where he's raising money for another rescue centre.
25:41And he has plans to expand.
25:44To be honest, if we had enough manpower and enough funding,
25:48we would be in every single corner of the globe.
25:52That is our goal, long term.
25:55And if you'd like to hear a longer version of this documentary, search Phylon 4, The Child Rescue Con,
26:06on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.