Does a picture show a Columbian fishing boat filled with cocaine before it was destroyed in the Caribbean Sea by the U.S. Naval Task Force in October 2025? No, that's not true: The photo is from a 2024 drug bust by Spanish forces that occurred 500 miles south of the Canary Islands. The story was reported in the news and the image was posted on the internet. The photo does not show a current operation by the U.S. Naval Task Force off the coast of Colombia in the fall of 2025. The account that posted the screenshot is not an official US government account.
The claim appeared in an October 19, 2025 post on X.com account @defense_civil25 (archived here). It opened:
Update: Columbian President claims one of the Narco boats destroyed by the US Naval Task Force was 'just a poor Columbian fisherman.' Does this look like a poor fishing boat?? It looks like he had tons of bait (cocaine, attracts lots of fish)! Columbian President is a liar!!
This is what the photo looked like on X.com at the time of writing:
(Image source: X.com account @defense_civil25 screenshot taken by Lead Stories.)
The image used in the X.com post is a cropped version of a photo published on the English Radio News website in an article titled, Major Drug Bust Off Canary Islands By Spanish Forces, on February 19, 2024, as this screenshot shows:
(Image source: English Radio News website screenshot taken by Lead Stories.)
The article states that Guardia Civil, Spain's national police force, seized the drugs from a boat in the Atlantic Ocean:
Guardia Civil have disrupted a major international drug smuggling operation, after officers boarded a boat carrying over four tonnes of cocaine, five hundred miles south of the Canary Islands.
The post on X.com misspells the country Colombia, mimicking President Donald Trump, who also misspells it in social media messages, as the New York Post (archived here) reported, writing it as "Columbia." Colombia's government has said that a fisherman was killed in a recent strike the U.S. described as the killing of a drug trafficker, as Fox News (archived here) reported.
The account that posted the message, US Homeland Security News @defense_civil25 is verified on X.com, but is not an official government account. Lead Stories has previously fact checked other claims made by the account here.
