Did a "Lucas Mamdani", brother to New York City's mayor, buy properties with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders to financially benefit from new city policies on affordable housing? No, that's not true: Lead Stories did not find evidence to support the existence of any sibling of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The claim originated from a page with a satire label that was later cropped out of the image that went viral.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on January 7, 2026. It began:
🚨EXPOSED: FAKE SOCIALISTS BERNIE & MAMDANI CAUGHT IN MASSIVE NYC PROPERTY SCAM - POCKETING TENS OF MILLIONS FROM SHAM 'AFFORDABLE HOUSING' FRAUD!🔗 https://t.me/+nPHzGh53lLNkMTg0Bernie's Shady Holdings Co. SNAPPING UP CONDEMNED DUMPS ACROSS THE CITY, READY TO FLIP 'EM FOR INSANE PROFITS TO MAMDANI'S CROOKED REGIME THE SECOND HE STEALS THE MAYOR'S SEAT!Then Brother Lucas SWOOPS IN WITH NO-BID SWEETHEART DEALS TO 'FIX' 'EM UP - PURE CORRUPTION CASH GRAB! They're Not Socialists, They're MASTER CON ARTISTS RIPPING OFF THE POOR!Share This Before They Shut It Down! Follow @mcafeenew for more drops.
The post continued with an image that read:
They call themselves socialists, but they both stand to make tens of millions off of Mamdani's sham Mayoral coup.
Bernie and his holdings company have been buying up condemned properties all over New York City to sell to Mamdani's 'affordable housing' program as soon as he's sworn in.
'They'll sell the properties at a huge profit, and then Mamdani's brother, Lucas, will make even more on no-bid contracts to bring the buildings up to code.'
They're not really socialists. They're con artists.
This is what that image looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/mcafeenew)
The entry suggested New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani had a sibling who carried out a scheme aimed at their family's personal enrichment. However, that brother -- "Lucas Mamdani" -- was a fictional character.
As Mamdani's mayoral campaign drew national spotlight to his biography, many established media outlets profiled his rise in detail in 2025. Yet, those articles -- for example, here (archived here) and here (archived here) -- do not say anything about the candidate's supposed sibling, Lucas. He is described as an only child.
Mamdani's parents, film director Mira Nair and Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani, are also public figures. Lead Stories found no credible sources suggesting that either of them has a child other than Zohran.
A search across media reports on Google News for "Zohran" and "Lucas Mamdani", returned one item, an irrelevant page that mentioned Zohran Mamdani and a person named Peter Lucas:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of search results page at google.com)
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of article at zeit.de)
The German-language article (archived here) that is partially seen in the screenshot above cites "Peter Lucas". As translated by Google Translate, the piece said that he "was part of Mamdani's campaign team in 2020", when he was elected (archived here) to the New York State Assembly. The article added that in June 2025, when it was published, "Peter Lucas" was "still going door-to-door campaigning for the candidate." The piece never implied that Lucas was Mamdani's relative.
A search across Google News showed no credible news reports about anything remotely close to what the viral post reviewed in this fact check suggested:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of search results page at google.com)
A reverse image search showed that the claim originated from a January 5, 2026, post (archived here) in a group known for spreading made-up content. The disclaimer, later removed from other variations of the image, additionally emphasized that:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at facebook.com/ALLODSatire)
The page where the picture initially appeared was part of the "America's Last Line of Defense" network of satire websites run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair from Maine, along with a loose confederation of friends and allies. They mostly publish made-up stories with headlines specifically created to hoodwink Republicans, conservatives and evangelical Christians into angrily sharing or commenting on the story on Facebook without actually reading the full article, exposing them to mockery and ridicule by fans of the sites and pages.
Pages associated with Blair show visible satire disclaimers everywhere.
Every site in the network has an about page that reads (in part):
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with "comedy":sat·ire
ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
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.Everything on this website is fiction. 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. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites that omit the satire disclaimer and other hints that the stories are fake. One of the most persistent networks of such sites is run by a man from Pakistan named Kashif Shahzad Khokhar (aka "DashiKashi") who has spammed hundreds of such stolen stories into conservative and right-wing Facebook pages in order to profit from the ad revenue.
