With the increase in access to social media marketing platforms, there is an ever-growing amount of accounts having young people pretending to be animal lovers asking for money to support welfare of animals. However, be on alert. Some, or most, of these are people torturing the animals, starving them, inflicting harm on them directly to generate painful content to manipulate potential donors into giving. Unfortunately, as we generously donate to these criminals, we inadvertently fuel the growing scam of torturing animals. BE AWARE!
HOW TO SPOT A FAKE UGANDAN SHELTER on Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram or LinkedIn.
- Nearly always you will see a young person being recorded in an strikingly impoverished area
- Mournful music playing to intensify the mood
Multiple posts throughout the day with similar content asking for money.
- You will notice the same animals on multiple online accounts. And despite all the donations, the animal’s body condition never seems to improve.
- You may see the same shared poster among the scammers which reads something similar to “1 Share = 1 meal”
- They run multiple paypal accounts under different names
- There is no accountability for donations received, no official business or organization registration,and no financial audits to review for authenticity
- Some claimed websites are completely faked by copying legitimate sites
- All paperwork and receipts to donors are fabricated, sometimes using legitimate veterinarian’s information, with receipt prices or estimates profoundly overinflated for the location
- They show expensive bags of dog food.. Leaked footage has shown that the dogs are abused as soon as filming stops to keep them from eating too much so it can be used for additional videos.
- On personal social accounts they flaunt a life of luxury, posing with expensive cars together with many other scammers and are seen flaunting large sums of money
- Animals are only offered for adoption at an extreme fee.
- Many of the scammers have been identified sharing the same group of animals for their videos
Dogs are missing in Mityana. Since this criminal activity has dramatically increased unchecked in Mityana, the hotbed of activity, many dogs have been reported stolen or missing. A recent BBC documentary investigated the fraud of millions of British pounds, and double that in U.S. dollars, pilfered from unsuspecting donors from these animal welfare scams coming out of Uganda. It was also determined that local officials are very aware of the activity and have done nothing noteworthy to stop it.
All of this is possible BECAUSE THEY ARE PART OF A MAFIA and have STOLEN OVER $2,000,000 USD and another 1,000,000 British pounds and Euro from unsuspecting donors to fill their pockets and fill the bank accounts of the officials who look the other way..
Animal Welfare Act violations
International Wire Fraud
Animal trafficking/theft
Cyber Crimes
The scammers offer up incriminating evidence of themselves. By checking their personal social media pages, Instagram and TikTok, you will find them having a polarized lifestyle than what they have led people to believe in their videos with starving and maimed animals begging for donations. A good example is @lucidcrueltyfighters.
Uganda now has the largest number of social media accounts in the world for scamming money from people worldwide using extreme cases of animal welfare – over 10,000 pages by persons claiming to be from small villages in Mityana, Uganda. With so many using the same approach, the likelihood of any being authentic is unlikely. And most seem to be working together as a crime ring.
What has been achieved to counter these scams and to improve the welfare of animals
- Sharing information (such as the above) to educate the global community about the existence and proliferation of these scams
- Local animal welfare organisations working in Uganda have been able to liaise with
SMACC a recognisable anti animal cruelty organisation to cancel over 1000 fake
accounts on TikTok in 2025. We have made efforts to inform other online platforms about
the ongoing scams.
- We have formed the Animal Welfare Alliance Uganda to mobilize coordination and participation of all legitimate organizations
- We have engenged the local authorities and the ministries to bring to the animals cruelty inclusing starvation, torture and injuring animals all to use the images to attract donations from unsuspecting wellwishers
What you can do to help this campaign
- Share this message with the world
- Before you donate, verify the authenticity of the organisation you are donating to. The Animal welfare Alliance of Uganda can held you with this
- Do not just like any social media platform with the indicators listed above
Animal Welfare Alliance Uganda was created to ensure all animals are treated with respect and to be a unified voice against animal cruelty wherever it is found. Working together and staying informed will cultivate a positive difference in Uganda.