Decade-old video resurfaces with false claim of FBI director exposing police corruption

The video, showing police officers breaking a car window and ordering the driver to get out, was shared on TikTok on January 15, 2026.

Its Thai-language voiceover says the man is the director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, who had been "systematically documenting corruption".

"The man was dragged out and handcuffed. The officers opened the trunk, hoping to plant false evidence -- but instead, they found federal case files. Inside were the names and faces of every officer involved," it goes on to say. "The man in handcuffs was not a suspect -- he was their highest-ranking superior."

The video's Thai-language caption also says it was filmed at a border checkpoint in the United States, adding "Thai police should face something like this too, as should corrupt government officials."

Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International ranks Thailand 107 out of 180 countries on its latest corruption perceptions index from 2024 (archived link).

Speakers at a Thailand Institute of Justice event in December 2025 also warned that "entrenched corruption and weak rule of law pose challenges to governance, economic growth and international confidence" (archived link).

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Screenshot of the false TikTok post captured on January 21, 2026, with a red X added by AFP

The same video was also shared elsewhere in similar Facebook, Instagram and Threads posts.

But it does not show a law enforcement operation to expose police corruption, as the posts claim.

The driver in the video does not resemble either the current FBI Director Kash Patel or his predecessors (archived here and here).

There have also been no official reports of an undercover FBI operation that revealed widespread corruption among police in the United States. 

A reverse image search using the keyframes from the falsely shared footage led to a YouTube video posted on September 7, 2014, by a user named Robert Trudell (archived link).

The footage used in the false posts appears to be a cropped and mirrored version of this video.

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Screenshot comparison between the falsely shared video (L) and the YouTube video posted in 2014

The video is titled, "Robert Trudell rides into Pine Valley, California - US Border Patrol Checkpoint, Refuses Search".

According to its description, the incident took place on May 31, 2013, at a US Border Patrol checkpoint near Pine Valley, California. Trudell said an officer broke the car window before other officers searched the vehicle without a warrant.

According to a report by NBC News, Border Patrol checkpoints -- located up to 160 kilometres (100 miles) from the US borders with Mexico and Canada -- have long dotted US arteries (archived link).

Vehicles are filtered into the checkpoint from a highway, with those inside having to affirm they are citizens or have legal residency in the United States, and they are not trafficking contraband or human cargo deeper into the country.

Trudell's YouTube channel contains numerous videos of similar encounters with officers at checkpoints (archived link).

AFP reached out to Trudell for comment, but did not receive a response at time of publication.

In a 2014 episode of US public radio show "This American Life" about similar "checkpoint refusal" videos, Trudell said he was testing the system to better understand it (archived link).

"Because I'm close to it, I'm surrounded by it. I can't go anywhere without going through this system. And the people in the community I'm in are trapped in it," he said.