| schema:text
| - A video showing footage of people being arrested, along with visuals of the ongoing southern California wildfires and some stock footage, has gone viral on social media platforms.
The claim states that USA's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested the "culprit for the California inferno (sic)," one Richard Graves, the CEO of a company called Westland Developments.
It adds that Graves had intentionally started the fire as he "had millions of dollars in interest tied to the scorched lands" and had aimed to transformed the land into a real estate project.
The Quint also received a query regarding this video on its WhatsApp tipline.
How did we find out the truth?: First, we ran a keyword search for 'Richard Graves Westland Developments', but only found more claims and no reports about such a person being arrested.
Next, we ran another search using the term 'FBI arrests for California fire', but the only credible information we came across was a 'seeking information' notice by the Bureau, which is looking for details about a drone and its operator, after the former collided with a firefighting plane on 9 January, causing damage.
What about Westland Developments?: When we looked up the company's name, we found that there was only one by its name in Los Angeles, which is a property development company.
On adding 'CEO' to our search, we found that this company's CEO is one Abraham Assil, and not Richard Graves.
Was Richard Graves Arrested?: During our search, we came across news reports about over 39 people being arrested for "crimes against disaster victims" since 7 January.
Another report by Newsweek carried the names and photos of the people arrested, crediting them to the Santa Monica Police Department (SMPD).
We then checked SMPD's website for press releases and arrest reports. None of the people arrested were identified as Richard Graves.
Similarly, we checked the FBI's arrests dataset, which showed us that the agency had not made any arrests in Los Angeles in the last three months.
What about the visuals?: While the viral video predominantly uses stock footage, some sections of it use real visuals of the ongoing fires ravaging Los Angeles.
However, two sections of the clip, showing visuals of two men being arrested, were also shared with the false claim about 'Graves' being arrested.
Clip 1: The clip that the video opens with shows a man dressed in red shorts walking with his hands behind his head and a group of people wearing protective gear arresting him.
Running a reverse image search on the screenshot on the left led us to a similar YouTube video from 14 April 2023, which said that it showed one "Jack Teixeira being arrested for leaking classified documents about Ukraine and South Korea."
Using his name as a search term with the word 'arrest', we found a CNN report showing the full footage of Teixeira's arrest, including the visuals in the viral claim.
The US Department of Justice shared a press release dated 12 November 2024 on its website, saying that 22-year-old Teixeria, former member of the US Air National Guard (USANG), was awarded 15 years in prison and three years of supervised release "for retaining and transmitting hundreds of pages of classified National Defense Information (NDI), including many documents designation top secret.
Clip 2: The Quint's Team WebQoof debunked the other clip, showing a man being detained on the footpath in broad daylight, when it was being shared with a similar claim.
Those sharing this clip had falsely claimed that an Indian man Bhuvesh Patel, belonging to the Hindu community, had been arrested for 'starting' one of the LA wildfires.
However, we found that the man was identified as one Juan Manuel Sierra-Leyva, a Mexican national.
While he was arrested on suspicion of intending to start a fire, he was not charged with arson by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).
However, Sierra-Leyva was still kept in custody over charges of parole violation, their posts on X said.
Conclusion: The viral video shares unrelated visuals and false information to claim that the FBI arrested Richard Graves, the CEO of Westland Developments, for starting the LA fires.
(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on , or e-mail it to us at and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories .)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)