Fact check: Fake visuals about Sinaloa cartel spread online
July 26, 2024
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, the co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, is in US custody after decades on the run. Zambada, 76, was arrested Thursday in El Paso, Texas, alongside Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of infamous drug lord "El Chapo." Both face multiple charges related to fentanyl trafficking.
The Sinaloa cartel, named after the Mexican state where the gang was formed in the late 1980s, is one of the world's most powerful criminal groups, raking in billions of dollars annually by trafficking drugs around the globe. Zambada's arrest has drawn significant attention due to his notoriety and the cartel's vast network of influence.
As the news spread, a flurry of misinformation and unfounded claims about the incident emerged on social media. DW Fact Check investigates two viral cases:
Mexican sports journalist falsely identified as key cartel member
Claim: An image circulating on social media alleges to show a hitman for Zambada.
A post on X features a collage showing a close-up of a bearded man and a photo of "El Mayo" released in a handout from the US State Department.
"Along with Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, Jesus Hernandez, alias 'El Jabali,' an alleged plaza boss, is also in US custody," claims the post, which has garnered hundreds of thousands of views by the time of this article's publication.
Another post, which has been viewed approximately 500,000 times, shares the picture of the bearded man with the caption: "During the arrest of Mayo Zambada by DEA agents, one of his hitmen, Jesus Hernandez, better known as 'El Jabali,' was killed."
DW fact check: False.
A reverse image search traced the bearded man's picture to a Mexican sports journalist featured in a TikTok account that posts football-related videos. The image appears to be a screenshot from a video published in September 2023. Both the TikTok account and the associated website feature more videos of the journalist.
Furthermore, there are no official reports or records of a key Sinaloa cartel member going by the name of "El Jabal," Spanish for wild boar. The nickname "El Jabali" was previously associated with Jose Vazquez Villagrana, an operator for Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who was arrested in 2010. Villagrana does not resemble the Mexican sports journalist.
The journalist has been misidentified on social media several times before. Most recently, he was falsely accused of being involved in the attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump on July 13.
"The person who fired shots at the #DonaldJTrump rally in #Pennsylvania has been fully identified. It is Jesus 'EL BIDON' Hernandez, a drug dealer and leader of a sect that supports President #Biden," claimed a post on X, receiving over a million views. Other posts have falsely implicated him in events such as the collapse of a bridge in the US city of Baltimore and other criminal acts.
Old video used for false claims about Mexico
Claim: Tanks enter the Mexican city of Culiacan following Zambada's arrest.
A post in Spanish shares a video purporting to show Mexican military tanks entering Culiacan, a city in the state of Sinaloa, following the arrests of Zambada and Guzman Lopez. This video has also been shared in English-language posts, some garnering tens of thousands of views by the time of this article's publication.
DW fact check: False.
The video is old and actually shows tanks entering Ankara during an attempted coup in July 2016. A reverse image search of one of the video's snapshots leads to an earlier version of the video published on X by PressTV, an Iranian state media outlet, on July 16, a day after the coup began.
This video has been used to make similar false claims in the past. It has circulated in recent months and even last year on social media, purporting to show the Mexican military entering Culiacan.
Culiacan has been a scene of fighting between drug cartels and the state for years. One notable surge of violence occurred in 2019, known as "Culiacanazo" or "Black Thursday," when an army operation failed to capture Ovidio Guzman Lopez, one of El Chapo's sons. During the clashes between the cartel and the authorities, eight people were killed, four of them civilians caught in the crossfire. However, at present, there are no reports of clashes or military operations in Culiacan by Mexican or international news agencies.
In January, when drug gangs across Ecuador launched a series of violent attacks, the video resurfaced in several social media posts and on a number of websites, falsely claiming to show Ecuador's military entering a city to restore order.
Conclusion: The recent arrest of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada has led to a surge in misinformation on social media. A Mexican sports journalist was falsely identified as a cartel member, and an old video from the 2016 coup in Turkey was misrepresented as showing military action in Culiacan.
Edited by: Sean M. Sinico