Fake News: NO Priest Arrested After Being Caught With 10kg Of Cocaine

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: NO Priest Arrested After Being Caught With 10kg Of Cocaine

Was 47-year old priest Jefferson Alvin from Belmont, California arrested with 10kg of cocaine and did he think it was just flour for hosts? If you thought that was true: think again. The story is completely fake and was made up by a satire website.

It originated from an article published on March 27, 2018 on 8shit.net titled "Priest Arrested After Being Caught With 10kg Of Cocaine; Says He Thought It Was Flour For Hosts" (archived here) which opened:

Jefferson Alvin, a 47-year old priest from Belmont, California, was caught with 10kg of cocaine when he was pulled over by the police last Friday.

After the priest stopped his car at the side of the road, the police asked him to open the car's trunk to check that the car had a good triangle and that the retro-reflective vest was complying with the terms of the current legislation.

The police affirmed that this priest always had a strange behavior and, therefore, they began to suspect something:

"It was clear the this man was nervous. We didn't know if he was suffering from anything or not, but it was hard for him to speak and he was taking several seconds to react to anything we said."

People who only saw the summary of the story on social media might have mistaken it for a real news report:

Priest Arrested After Being Caught With 10kg Of Cocaine; Says He Thought It Was Flour For Hosts

Jefferson Alvin, a 47-year old priest from Belmont, California, was caught with 10kg of cocaine when he was pulled over by the police last Friday. After the priest stopped his car at the side of the road, the police asked him to open the car's trunk to check that the car had a good triangle and [...]

But the man in the picture was actually not a priest: it shows Roberto Revelo (a shooting suspect) being arrested in 2012:

Police make arrest in suspected homicide

FAIRFIELD - Vacaville police arrested a Fairfield man Friday afternoon who they believe shot and killed a Vacaville man whose death was originally reported as a suicide. Roberto Revelo walked out the door of a Grande Circle town house around 4:15 p.m. with his wife to do some Black Friday shopping.

As you can see he is wearing no cross on his shirt: that detail was later added digitally.

We wrote about 8shit.net and their "fauxtire" stories before, here are the recent articles that mention the site:

The site 8shit.net carries a disclaimer on its about page that reads:

8Shit is a satire and humor website.

It contains cutting edge satire on a diverse range of topics.

The website publishes fake news, shocking rumors and reports with incisive sarcasm, and humor.

We also post crazy real news which often sounds too good to be true.

And an additional disclaimer in the footer of every page:

8Shit is a satire news and humor website. All its content is fiction (except those posts under the "serious" category) and shouldn't be taken as real. All references, names and marks or institutions in this website are used as contextual elements, like in any novel or science-fiction story.

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  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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