Antifake / Factcheck

11 April

Fact-checking: Zelensky brought 300 kg of cocaine from Argentina

We check the media the state TV channel refers to.

Fake appearance date: 31.03.2024
Volodymyr Zelensky has brought a large shipment of drugs from Argentina where he attended the inauguration of President Javier Miley. Sergei Gusachenko, host of the state-run TV Belarus 1, reported this. The Weekly Top Fake team fact-checked this piece of fake news.

On March 31, 2024, Belarus state TV appeared to accuse the President of Ukraine of transporting drugs.

“And about Ukrainian success. In quotes, of course. The head of the Kyiv regime, Volodymyr Zelensky, was able to carry out the most successful operation in recent times. True, it is not connected with military operations at all. According to the Boston Times, Zelensky's trip to Argentina for the inauguration of Javier Miley allowed him to transport home a shipment of cocaine weighing 300 kg on a diplomatic mission board. Of course, it was smuggled”, Sergey Gusachenko stated in the program Main Air.

In fact, there are only several publications from March 2024, discovered by the Weekly Top Fake team, in the archive of The Boston Times media outlet, which the Belarus state TV channel host refers to. The earliest item is from March 17. Before that date, there was nothing.

The media outlet website was registered on January 18, 2024. Although, it says that the newspaper editorial team started working in 1972 and has won numerous awards for excellence in journalism, including the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. As the Weekly Top Fake team checked, there was no such award winner in the history.

We have googled the media outlet with a similar name — The Boston Globe. Indeed, it won the Pulitzer Prize more than once. The Boston Globe really exists and has been published since 1872.

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