Venezuela

Does a video show Mongols and Hells Angels members heading to Colorado in 2024 to "deal with" Venezuelan gang members? No, that's not true: The original video is at least 14 years old. The video was previously used in 2020 to claim Hells Angels and Mongols members were heading to Seattle to confront antifa followers, and was fact checked by…

Does a video on Instagram Threads show Hells Angels and other motorcycle clubs going to Aurora, Colorado, to fight a Venezuelan gang after violence was reported in August 2024? No, that's not true: The video was first posted to TikTok in November 2022 -- nearly two years before media reported gang violence in Aurora. The video's original poster clarified on…

Does a video on Instagram show Hells Angels going to Aurora, Colorado, to fight members of a Venezuelan gang after gang-related violence was reported in August 2024? No, that's not true: The video was first posted to TikTok on July 7, 2024, more than a month before local media reported gang violence in Aurora. Elements in the video and on…

Does a social media video of large crowds moving through a city center show a mass public protest against the disputed results of Venezuela's July 2024 presidential election? No, that's not true: The video first appeared in 2022 and shows soccer fans gathering in the Argentinian capital, Buenos Aires, to celebrate Argentina winning soccer's World Cup that year. It does…

Does a viral video portray the 2024 mass protests in Venezuela in response to the contested results of this year's presidential election? No, that's not true: The footage has been online since 2017. It showed a different rally in the country's capital. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on July 29, 2024.…

Has President Joe Biden "secretly flown 320,000 illegal immigrants from Latin American airports to 43 U.S. cities"? No, that's not true: The Biden administration called the claim "categorically false," noting it had publicly announced the immigration program in January 2023. The program includes individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The announcement stated that those granted permission to enter the…

Does a video circulating on social media show a CNN report with President Joe Biden speaking about oil smuggling in Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela? No, that's not true: The video clip is not authentic. This exact clip is available from a celebrity voice-generating app. This clip featuring the likeness of Joe Biden has an AI-generated voice delivering a customizable…

Does a video on Mexico's Milenio Television channel show a Mexican cartel member carrying a U.S.-made Javelin anti-tank missile? No, that's not true: Raytheon Technologies, which makes the Javelin, told Lead Stories that the video shows another type of shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon. The claim appeared in a post on Twitter (archived here) by Mexican journalist Azucena Uresti on May 31,…

Are any of the men pictured in social media posts Mauricio Garcia, the gunman who was killed during the May 7, 2023, mass shooting at an Allen, Texas, outlet mall? No, that's not true: While a man pictured in two different posts with two different pictures shares a name with the gunman, he is not the same person nor the…

Can the Alaska-based HAARP project, a former military research facility for studying the ionosphere, remotely initiate natural disasters such as earthquakes anywhere on Earth? No, that's not true: An "explanation" of its purported capabilities to manufacture disasters, posted on social media, contradicts well-established scientific facts. The manager of the HAARP project told Lead Stories that the facility "cannot create or…