{"id":582156,"date":"2026-05-13T18:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/582156\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T18:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:19:10","slug":"mityana-dog-scam-dozens-of-dogs-rescued-and-suspect-arrested-in-uganda-after-bbc-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/582156\/","title":{"rendered":"Mityana dog scam: Dozens of dogs rescued and suspect arrested in Uganda after BBC investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Undercover filming by the BBC showed that instead of benefitting the dogs, many content creators spent money on funding their own luxury lifestyles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The investigation also revealed there have been instances of dogs being intentionally harmed for content.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The BBC uncovered the case of Russet, a dog with severe leg injuries who was posted across dozens of social media accounts, together with requests for funding for his treatment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The BBC investigation traced the story of Russet from the shelters in Mityana to a veterinary clinic in the country&#8217;s capital Kampala, where a veterinary surgeon who operated on the dog assessed his legs injuries might have been intentionally inflicted. Russet did not survive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This case is the first arrest after the world has seen how this scam has developed into an online content creator&#8217;s scamming business,&#8221; said Bart Kakooza, vice-chairperson of the Animal Welfare Alliance Uganda.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The entire world is now watching to see how Uganda will bring these cases to justice and how these animals will be given a new chance at life lived without cruelty.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Undercover filming by the BBC showed that instead of benefitting the dogs, many content creators spent money on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-582156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}