24-04-2025
AOC's brother is forced to deny link to huge fentanyl trafficking crime
The brother of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was forced to publicly shut down a circulating rumor claiming he was at the center of a fentanyl trafficking scheme.
Gabriel Ocasio-Cortez, 32, took to TikTok to respond to a video spreading a bizarre claim - that AOC's brother, wrongly named as 'Matthew' in the allegation, had been arrested on Lake Superior after US Coast Guards caught him in possession of $1.2 million worth of fentanyl.
As the actual brother of the Democrat Congresswoman, Gabriel quickly squashed the viral lie, duetting the creator's post with a pointed caption that read: 'don't make me sue'.
'I'm the brother,' Gabriel said in his TikTok. 'My name's not Matthew. I have no idea why they're posting this.'
'I work with the homeless,' he added. 'I have nothing to do with this story, which isn't real. Please find something better to do with your time.'
On Tuesday, the creator in question had posted a video to the popular app, appearing in front of what seemed to be a screenshot of a recent news article.
'AOC's brother has just been charged with trafficking fentanyl,' the creator confidently stated in the since-deleted video, all while pointing at the 'news source' behind her.
The fake news quickly spread across a variety of social media platforms - including Facebook, Instagram Threads and Twitter - with the TikTok video alone garnering more than 50,000 likes before its removal.
The creator's so-called 'source' was an article from the Dunning-Kruger Times - the very website where the rumor first began circulating.
She pointed to the article's first three paragraphs during the video - almost as if to bolster her credibility - where the tone and content of the reporting was clearly visible to viewers.
'Awkward,' the first sentence of the article read. 'A Nike racing boat carrying AOC's brother Matthew was also carrying $1.2 million worth of fentanyl when the US Coast Guard boarded it on Lake Superior.'
'"We had credible information of a drug buy," said Vice Admiral Joe Barron, "We had no idea there would be a high-profile person on board,"' the article continued.
'Matthew Ocasio-Cortez was booked into the federal holding facility in Green Bay on charges of criminal conspiracy and trafficking a class 1 controlled substance.'
The cited Dunning-Kruger Times website, along with the America's Line of Defense Facebook page - which also shared the story - are both part of a network of internet outlets that describe themselves as satire in nature.
In the article, the author - identified as Flagg Eagleton - elaborated on the claim, clearly spinning a detailed account of the entirely fictional drug bust that allegedly took place on the waters of Lake Superior last week.
'What they found, in addition to an alarming amount of oat milk and Patagonia vests, was $1.2 million worth of fentanyl, stored in air-tight Nike-branded containers and labeled "Performance Powder,"' the story read.
The author went on to claim that the Congresswoman's brother was taken into custody without incident, and upon arriving to the federal holding facility, supposedly 'asked for oat milk with his vegan gruel and demanded a cruelty-free mattress'.
Nevertheless, a closer look at the article would likely reveal the outlet's satirical nature, especially through the over-the-top tone of parody and the exaggerated lines lightly mentioning 'government sources'.
'According to court documents that may or may not exist outside of this article, Matthew's defense claims the drugs were planted,' one paragraph stated.
'He thought the containers were filled with "eco-friendly soap flakes", and that the whole incident was "probably just the work of the white supremacists trying to discredit a powerful Latinx family."'
Even further, the author claimed that 'Matthew' was facing up to 20 years in prison after the bust, 'or a spot on The View, depending how the plea deal goes'.
To conclude the article, the author wrote: 'God Bless America'.
On the website's 'About Us' page, the outlet claims to be part of a 'network of parody, satire and tomfoolery, or as Snopes called it before they lost their war on satire: Junk News'.
'Everything on this website is fiction,' the page stated. 'It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real.'
'If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined.'
The page also went as far as to include a definition of the word satire for those who 'complain and decide satire is synonymous with comedy'.
'Satire: The use of humor, irony, exaggeration OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues,' the definition read.
Despite the website's blatantly satirical style, the lack of coverage from any credible outlets, and the simple fact that AOC's brother is named Gabriel - not Matthew - many readers still took the rumor at face value, interpreting it as the honest truth.
The viral firestorm prompted Gabriel to share a follow-up video to his TikTok account later that day, where he addressed the dangers of spreading false rumors online.
'The thing that I want people to really understand where I'm coming from is that, even if, let's just say, one million people play into that - let's just say that even one percent of them actually believe it - that's 10,000 people,' Gabriel said in the video.
He then reduced the percentage to 0.05 percent, explaining that, at the end of the day, it still amounts to 5,000 people who believe the false rumor - and that's all it takes.
'That's all it takes to start to get somebody that's a little bit radicalized, somebody that's willing to pick up their guns and go do something - and it wouldn't be the first time somebody has tried,' he said.
'That's the society that we're in,' he added. 'So things like this are just more serious than ever - and you can't slander people.'
