How an Instagram star's $7 million mission to rescue Afghan civilians struggled to get off the groun
Source: Washington Post
Investigations
How an Instagram star’s $7 million mission to rescue Afghan civilians struggled to get off the ground
By Jon Swaine
Today at 11:11 a.m. EDT
On Aug. 17, Tommy Marcus, an Instagram star who posts as “Quentin Quarantino,” asked his 690,000 followers to help fund evacuation flights for Afghan civilians fleeing Taliban rule.
The donations poured in. A target of $550,000 — an amount that Marcus said would pay for two flights and rescue at least 300 people — was hit in just 80 minutes. In less than two weeks, the total exceeded $7.2 million, a sum that startled Marcus and the nonprofit leaders with whom he had partnered in the effort, which they called “Operation Flyaway.”
“We want to be clear: EVERY SINGLE NICKEL of everything raised will go to either pay for flights, or support these humans through various non-profits,” Marcus wrote on the Flyaway GoFundMe page after the campaign launched, pledging that the operation “will be running flights until they tell us we can’t anymore.”
Yet no Afghans have been evacuated on flights chartered by Flyaway, an examination by The Washington Post found. The examination found that Flyaway spent $3.3 million on flights that were canceled for which it has not received refunds.
In some cases, Flyaway has helped pay for flights organized by other groups or lent money to make flights possible. In others, Flyaway says it has helped Afghans reach airports. Though Marcus, 26, has said Flyaway helped evacuate hundreds of people, organizers acknowledged to The Post that most of them departed on flights paid for by U.S. taxpayers or other organizations.
The Post’s examination is based on financial records, emails, text messages, recordings of calls and interviews with 10 people who worked on or with Flyaway. It offers a rare look inside the finances of a short-term viral fundraising campaign, an increasingly common type of philanthropic effort in which a quickly assembled team — often aided by a social media influencer — can raise a fortune in hours using GoFundMe and similar sites.
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By Jon Swaine
Jon Swaine joined The Washington Post's investigative team in 2019. He previously worked for the Guardian from 2014 to 2019 and the Daily Telegraph from 2007 to 2014. Twitter https://twitter.com/jonswaine
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/flyaway-afghanistan-rescue-quentin-quarantino/2021/09/29/2e94666a-1b22-11ec-bcb8-0cb135811007_story.html
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