A viral video of a man taunting Polish taxpayers while waving banknotes and boasting about living on state benefits has exploded across social media in Poland, prompting a prominent Polish MEP to publicly crowdsource the man’s personal details — as the clip exposes deep tensions over immigration and welfare in one of Europe’s most tightly controlled benefit systems.
The video, posted to TikTok by a user identified as Ibrahim Pantera — described in local reports as a personal trainer based in the Brzeg area of Poland — shows a man speaking directly to camera in English while flashing Polish zloty notes. “Hey, you bastards, look — your welfare checks, your social benefits, and those 800 zlotys, I’ve got it all,” he says. “You work 12 to 14 hours a day and I’m the one collecting it all.” He then mockingly offers viewers “10 zlotys for a beer” before telling them to “promise me you’ll go back to working 12 to 14 hours.” A bold text overlay reads: “KEEP WORKING I WILL TAKE EVERYTHING.”
The clip was reposted in full by Dominik Tarczyński, a Polish MEP aligned with the European Conservatives and Reformists group, who captioned his post — addressed to his followers — with a blunt request: “Whoever knows this man, knows his work address, place of residence — please send a message to DM.” The post has since accumulated more than 214,000 views, 4,500 likes and over 900 reposts, with replies flooded by demands for deportation and claims from users purporting to identify the man’s location and permit status.
The response in Poland has been one of genuine fury. The video taps directly into anxieties about benefit access for non-EU migrants at a politically charged moment. Under legislation passed in early 2026, Poland tightened eligibility for its flagship 800+ child allowance — worth 800 Polish zloty per child per month — linking it to formal employment and contributions to Poland’s ZUS social insurance system for most foreign nationals. Non-EU migrants are generally required to demonstrate sufficient income to obtain and maintain a residence permit, with welfare dependency viewed as grounds for refusal.
Whether the man in the video is genuinely receiving Polish state benefits is unclear. His other TikTok content includes Polish hashtags, local references and what some users identified as a post boasting about a motorcycle purchased using the 800+ allowance. He has since claimed the video was a prank. That explanation has done little to reduce the backlash — the tone of the clip, regardless of intent, was widely read as deliberate provocation aimed at a domestic audience already sensitive to the question of who qualifies for public support.
Tarczyński, a longtime advocate of Poland’s restrictive approach to non-EU migration, is a well-known figure in European right-wing politics and has previously championed what he describes as the “Be Like Poland” model — tight border controls, minimal welfare access for newcomers and prioritisation of national workers. His decision to publicly solicit the man’s personal details from his online following has itself drawn criticism, with some observers warning it amounts to an organised attempt to dox a private individual.
The video and its aftermath illustrate the speed at which inflammatory content can now move from social media fringe to mainstream political controversy — and the willingness of elected officials to use that momentum as a lever in the wider debate on immigration.
