Although it is a state described as “over-policed,” Belarus registered one of the highest numbers of felonies per capita among the ex-USSR countries. Even though Belarus has an average of 14 police officers per 1,000 citizens, the country continues to be among the leaders in crime rate in Eastern Europe after Russia. In a country with a lot of defense measures, the police are still considered inefficient, mainly because of the poor working conditions, inadequate training, and lack of basic equipment.
But how can someone catch a criminal when the authorities aren’t capable of doing so? Although it seems unbelievable, social networks can be an ideal solution to identify such people. Using Facebook’s special algorithm “People You May Know,” TDI Group, the “best ad agency in Belarus,” launched a remarkable project. This project caught the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ attention thanks to its impressive results.
More than 5,000 delinquents go unpunished in Belarus, largely because the campaigns conducted to identify these people do not reach to a large number of people.
Normally, social media users don’t know they have criminals among their virtual friends. Taking benefit of the Internet’s advantages and also of the fact that people can be easier to reach on social media, the Minsk-based agency launched a Facebook trial, using the mentioned algorithm to find out if delinquent identities can be easier to reach.
They started off by creating six fake Facebook accounts for criminals Vitaly Shukan, Konstantin Mihnovets, Victor Kirshin, Valery Volkov, Alexander Petkov, and Aleksei Krupich, whose virtual profiles can easily be identifiable thanks to a series of clear clues: a header that says what the project is about; an avatar photo that features the well-known “Wanted” message; and finally, a timeline post accompanied by a message saying the user is wanted for a major crime.
Using the algorithm that suggests friends based on some mutual information, like location, personal preferences, or other characteristics, the social media profiles created for the criminals became increasingly popular among Internet users in Belarus.
The lawbreakers were the ones who “addressed” the friend requests at first, but later, Facebook users began to add the delinquents to their personal list of friends. Thus, the criminals’ accounts have come to reach more than 50 friend requests every day, with each account achieving over 2,500 friends.
As users kept adding them, the offenders’ profiles began to be progressively more visible and a few months after the launch of the trial, the criminal Vitaly Shukan was caught, after the police had spent more than 2 years searching for him.
During the project, more than 2 million users — almost 1/4 of all Belarusians — saw the identity of the wanted persons, and all was possible without spending any public funds. After seeing the remarkable results of this initiative, the Ministry of Internal Affairs Belarus decided to use this project as a perfect tool for identifying criminals.
Credits:
Ministry of Internal Affairs Belarus
Advertising Agency: TDI Group, Misnk, Belarus
Creative Director: Anna Tishkevich
Copywriter: Anna Tishkevich
Art Director: Alex Litovka