Somali Influencer’s U.S. Deportation Questioned as AFP Finds No French Spy Kidnapping Link

MOGADISHU — The man at the center of a viral deportation saga stepped into Mogadishu last month to cheers, ululations and a crush of cellphone cameras. For many Somalis online, Mahad Maxamud — a TikTok creator with a following now exceeding 450,000 — returned a folk hero. For others, he was the face of a bruising fight over truth, power and the politics of migration.

In late October, the official White House account on X labeled Maxamud a “criminal illegal scumbag,” alleging he helped kidnap two French intelligence officers in Mogadishu in 2009. By November, after a spring arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minnesota, he was on a plane out of the United States.

But an Agence France-Presse (AFP) review — citing Somali and French security sources — found no evidence tying Maxamud to the brazen abduction of Marc Aubrière and Denis Allex from the Sahafi Hotel at the height of Al-Shabab’s grip on the capital. Two Somali security agents told AFP they had never connected him to the case; a French security source familiar with the DGSE investigation was unequivocal: “Mahad Maxamud was not involved in the kidnapping.”

The split-screen storyline — explosive political rhetoric on one side, security assessments on the other — has turned Maxamud into a test case for how disinformation, diaspora politics and digital celebrity collide.

Aubrière escaped soon after his capture. Allex was killed more than three years later during a failed French commando raid. French authorities spent years scrutinizing potential Somali collaborators, according to AFP, but none of the reporting or testimony reviewed by the agency included Maxamud’s name.

Maxamud, who says he left Somalia for South Africa a year before the 2009 kidnapping, told AFP he had no ties to Al-Shabab. He later migrated to the United States in 2022, took gig work for Amazon and Uber, and was detained by ICE in May. “There were many men whose faces were covered. They put a gun to my head and arrested me,” he said of the arrest, describing a shock operation that ended with his removal from U.S. soil.

His deportation landed amid a political climate heated by hostile rhetoric about Somali immigrants. President Donald Trump last week referred to Somali migrants as “garbage” who should “go back to where they came from,” remarks that ricocheted across Somali communities in the United States and East Africa and drew condemnation from civic leaders.

Back in Mogadishu, the tide turned in his favor. Supporters massed at the airport and along city streets to greet him. He posted slickly produced videos of those homecomings — handshakes, tears, a choreographed mix of triumph and vindication — and met Galmudug regional president Ahmed Abdi Kariye. The endorsements were as much about rejecting the U.S. allegation as they were about embracing a native son who had mastered the language of Somalia’s most powerful platform: TikTok.

AFP found that many of the online claims linking him to the French kidnapping originated on fringe corners of the Somali web, including Suna Times, a site run by Netherlands-based TikTok rival Dahir Alasow. The influencer’s nephew, Ibrahim Ahmed Hersi, told AFP that Maxamud’s rapid ascent online made him a target. “He had a huge impact, and some envied him and may have gone to extreme lengths to get him in trouble,” Hersi said.

If the allegations were oxygen, TikTok’s design was the spark. Somalia’s TikTok sphere is a raucous, lucrative economy where creators battle in live, split-screen streams — trading jokes, barbs and, at times, clan-coded insults — to harvest virtual gifts that can be converted into cash. The stakes are not merely virtual. “A TikTok video filmed in Minnesota can trigger armed clan mobilization in Somalia within hours,” Jethro Norman of the Danish Institute for International Studies told AFP, underscoring the platform’s potential to escalate online feuds into real-world confrontation.

That volatile feedback loop has helped propel Maxamud’s audience. Since the allegations surfaced, his following has swelled by more than 100,000, and his videos, polished and triumphant, are winning clicks far beyond Somalia’s borders. Admirers see a wronged man outlasting a smear. Detractors see a provocateur gaming a fractured information space.

The unanswered question sits in Washington. The White House did not respond to AFP’s requests for comment. ICE has not publicly detailed the basis for its arrest beyond his removability under immigration law; immigration cases can hinge on civil violations, separate from criminal charges or evidence standards related to terrorism or kidnapping. The gap leaves room for political framing unmoored from the underlying investigatory record.

For Somalis at home and abroad, the episode resonates beyond one man. It is a study in how fast narratives travel and how difficult they are to unwind once amplified by the world’s loudest megaphones. It is also a reminder that in Somalia’s hybrid media landscape — part smartphone studio, part street rumor mill — reputations swing on the strength of a clip and the authority of who shares it.

On Mogadishu’s streets, the verdict looks settled. Crowds gathered to hoist Maxamud on shoulders and selfie sticks, reclaiming him as an emblem of national pride and digital fluency. Inside security circles in Mogadishu and Paris, the record is clearer: he wasn’t involved, officials told AFP. Between those realities lies a broader contest — over who gets to define truth in an era when border enforcement, global politics and platform virality intersect.

For now, the man at the center walks a city that once made global headlines for a kidnapping he says he had nothing to do with, broadcasting to hundreds of thousands who want to believe him. In an age of algorithmic judgment and political theater, that audience may be the only court that counts.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.