Several old photos of prosthetic fingers from Japan are viral online with the false claim that they show “fake fingers” being used for voting fraud during the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
BOOM found that the claims are false, the photos date back to 2013 and show how former and current members of the Yakuza, a Japanese crime syndicate, make use of prosthetic fingers to hide their severed digits.
One of the posts on X shows two photos of fake fingers with a text in Telugu that can be translated to English as, “Fake fingers are ready for elections. I think polling officers should also pull their fingers and check before casting their vote.” The caption with the photo reads, “Fake fingers for fake voters. Getting ready. Ok”. Click here to view the post.
The photos are also circulating on Facebook with a Bangla text, “Fake fingers for vote rigging.” Click here to view the post.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the photos are unrelated to the ongoing Lok Sabha elections– they were taken in 2013 and show prosthetic fingers made for the Yakuza in Japan.
We had previously debunked this claim in 2019 when it was being circulated in the backdrop of the general election at the time.
We ran a reverse image search of the viral photos on Google and found a Chinese news report from 2018 about a similar concern of fake fingers being used in the elections in China.
This report carried a feature image resembling the viral photo, and credited it to “akikofujita.com”. Click here to view.
Taking a cue from this, we ran a search for “akiko fujita fake fingers”. This led us to a news story published by ABC News on June 6, 2013 with the headline ‘Prosthetic Fingers Help Reform Japan’s Feared Yakuza Gangsters’.
The story detailed how Japanese prosthetics maker Shintaro Hayashi began receiving requests from clients that were a part of the Yakuza. The Yakuza has a ritual called ‘yubitsume’, which involves chopping off a member’s fingers for any serious offences.
Hayashi’s clients were mainly former members of the Yakuza who did not want to reveal their past to potential employers, or current members attending social events where their severed fingers would give away their ties with the gang. Hayashi began making prosthetic fingers for these clients, visuals of which were also shared by ABC News. The report carried a video of Hayashi showing several prosthetic fingers and one of his clients was also seen trying it.
We had, in 2019, also found the same story published on journalist Akiko Fujita’s personal website. The story was originally published on December 16, 2013, and the feature image used in it was an exact match to one of the viral images.
(This story was originally published by BOOM, and republished by NDTV as part of the Shakti Collective.)
