No, thousands of kids aren’t in cages under the Getty

Art in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles spans two campuses, the Getty Center and the Getty Villa Museum. Neither location has been ensnared in a huge human trafficking scandal, but a recent social media post suggests otherwise. 

"Underneath the Getty Museum is a network of tunnels and underground bunkers according to former CIA/NSA contractor Steven D. Kelley," the post says. "Child trafficking hub. 100,000 kids in cages." 

This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department told PolitiFact that it didn’t have any information about the claims in the post. 

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Lisa Lapin, a spokesperson for the J. Paul Getty Trust, which runs the museum, told us "these reports are all fake and false." 

Searching online we found no credible news reports or other sources to corroborate the claim that a staggering number of children — more than double the number of students enrolled at the nearby UCLA — were being kept in underground cages beneath a public perusing artwork. 

The post echoes others we’ve checked concerning underground tunnels and child sex trafficking. We’ve debunked claims that the military rescued "tortured children from the tunnel beneath Capitol Hill," that Russian President Vladimir Putin released 35,000 children from tunnels and subways in Ukraine, and that authorities seized upon the home of media mogul Oprah Winfrey — a regular target of this variety of misinformation — and "they are excavating the property and digging up the tunnels."

There was no evidence to support those claims, and there’s none for this post either. We rate it Pants on Fire!