This weekend, Mohammed wants to travel from Morocco to the neighbouring Spanish enclave of Ceuta, on the northern tip of Africa.He’s a Moroccan man in his twenties and wants to emigrate to Europe – not least because he’s been seeing lots of videos on Instagram that make the trip look easy.He contacts several of the Instagram accounts and one replies, claiming to have helped “many people” and offering him advice on how to cross for hundreds of pounds.Except Mohammed isn’t real – he’s a dummy account I’ve set up to investigate a network of interconnected Instagram profiles that are driving the influx of migrants to Ceuta with aspirational content and offering them help for a fee.It comes after roughly 78,000 migrants from Morocco arrived by sea into Ceuta in a matter of hours last month, 100 of whom died according to the Mayor of Ceuta.The crisis has calmed since, but it has sparked tensions between EU nations who share open borders as well as criticism of the Spanish government.The BBC’s Top Comment podcast has identified dozens of Instagram profiles that portray the short swim around the Morocco-Ceuta border fence as safe and easy – but in reality, people have drowned trying to make the crossing and take much longer routes. The accounts also wrongly show Ceuta as a viable route to mainland Europe.Our research suggests that this has contributed to the influx, alongside other factors such as misinformation about changes to Spanish immigration law and allegations about weak border controls.‘Help you enter Ceuta’After engaging with the accounts’ profiles and posts, the BBC was added to multiple channels and WhatsApp groups. When I asked one of the anonymous accounts if they could help me cross to Ceuta this weekend, they said yes and requested “5000 dirhams upfront” (£400) for “information that will help you enter Ceuta”.They said they had helped “many people” cross before and would give me information about the “sewer pipes” which I could use to help me reach the enclave safely.The account confirmed lots of other Instagram profiles help people to cross to Ceuta in this way, and asked for payment “via bank account” with a specific money transfer service.But they didn’t respond when asked whether I would get a refund if the crossing was not successful. They’ve since deleted several of their messages to the account.