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 Lead Stories at the time.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on September 1, 2024, with the following description:
Hells Angels and Mongols heading to Colorado to deal with the Venezuelan gang members!! #colorado #gang #hellsangels #official #ohshit #fyp #foryou #bikersoftiktok #coloradocheck #fafo #mongols #fyf
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Sep 3 18:09:38 2024 UTC)
The video used by the claim is not from September 1, 2024, as the text overlay suggests. It's taken from another misleading video used to make a similar claim that was posted to YouTube four years ago, itself taking footage from the original video (archived here) posted on YouTube 14 years ago by the Mongols Motorcycle Club.
Hoaxes recycling biker gang videos to claim they are going to beat up people are nothing new. Lead Stories fact checked a similar claim using the same video in 2020, except it alleged the Mongols and Hells Angels were supposedly headed to Seattle to "scrap with" antifa followers.
The latest use of the video came after local media outlets had reported (archived here) on August 28, 2024, violence (archived here) connected to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) at an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado.
In a post shared on Facebook on August 28, 2024, (archived here) the Aurora Police Department confirmed that it was aware of TdA operating in Aurora but believed incidents to be isolated. The department also clarified (archived here) in a video in a post to X on August 31, 2024, that "gang members are not taking over" the complex.
Lead Stories fact checked more bike gang videos falsely claiming to show they were headed to Aurora to confront Venezuelan gangs in the summer of 2024 here.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims concerning biker gangs can be found here.
