Bizarre: American YouTuber Arrested in India Over a Diet Coke Can

A 24-year-old American YouTuber was arrested in India after visiting a forbidden island in the Indian Ocean, hoping to make contact with an isolated tribe. The YouTuber is Michailo Viktorovich Polyakov, and according to an official statement from the Indian police, he is expected to stand trial at the local court in Port Blair on April 29.

Polyakov, a resident of Scottsdale, Arizona, was arrested at the end of March—only two days after setting foot on the restricted area of North Sentinel Island, which he visited to meet people from the isolated Sentinelese tribe. In an attempt to make initial contact and offer his friendship, he left them a can of diet coke and a coconut, filming a video and hoping they would respond positively to his proposal. Polyakov also took sand samples from the island and shot various videos on the island before returning to his boat.

"Perhaps it can be called just an adventure trip, but the fact is there was a violation of Indian laws," said a senior Indian police officer who requested to remain anonymous.

According to him, officers handling the case asked to stay out of the spotlight for now, and not to disclose investigation details to the media. "You need to understand that any outsider who meets a tribe member endangers the survival of the tribe. Therefore, we must act firmly against those who overstep the rules and break our laws."

Due to violating the law, Polyakov may face up to five years in prison and a fine. "This involves a tribe whose population has been isolated from the rest of the world for decades. The residents use spears and bows and arrows to hunt the animals that roam the small island. Any stranger approaching the tribe risks losing their life, as the natives are very suspicious of outsiders and attack anyone approaching their shore with spears," the anonymous officer explains, recalling the case that occurred in 2018 when an American missionary also decided to try his luck and got too close to the tribe. "He died brutally after being shot with arrows and was buried on the beach."