INSTASCAM: BBC THREE ANNOUNCES NEW DOCUMENTARY

We’ve never lived so much of our lives online, or so publicly… sharing what we love, where we go, and what we do with anyone who wants to take a look.

It can make you friends, it can make you rich… it can even make you famous. But what do you do if you’re busy living your best life on the gram and someone steals your face, your name and even your puppy pics and starts using them to insta-scam – and everyone thinks it’s you?

James - a 29-year-old from Belfast, who’s building himself a multi-million pound digital marketing business from nothing - was living the insta-dream: flash clothes, fast cars, exclusive parties and thousands of followers . . . class! Well, until someone scraped his accounts and he started getting messages from people accusing him of conning them out of tens thousands of pounds.

As he sets out to try and clear his name, James discovers a dark and utterly-heartless modern-day-crime where ruthless organised-crime-gangs are using the very latest technology to prey on our age-old desire for love and companionship, all to scam blameless victims out of their life-savings.

As James attempts to get his online identity back, he’ll discover that shockingly it’s not only those being conned who are the victims here - many of those carrying out the con are suffering even more at the hands of gangs running romance-scams estimated to have netted around 100 million pounds from victims in the UK alone in 2022.

Instascam – Give me Back my Face (w/t) 1x60 is being made for BBC Three and iPlayer by Strident.

It is a co-commission with BBC Northern Ireland. The Producer / Director is Pete Grant and the Executive Producer for Strident: Kelda Crawford-McCann. The Executive Producers for the BBC are David Hodgkinson and Mary McKeagney. It is being made with support from Northern Ireland Screen.