Barack Obama arrested in a Japanese drug bust.
A fake news story that said former President Barack Obama was busted for his links to a drug smuggling operation is part of an extensive and completely unsupported conspiracy theory popularized online. A May 2, 2017, headline on AmericanFlavor.news declared, "Just in: Barack Obama arrested in a Japanese drug bust." The story was flagged by Facebook users, as part of the social media site’s efforts to cut down on fake reports in its users’ news feeds. The post was exceptionally short, saying that Obama had "informed on his drug-dealing bosses," citing "Japanese military intelligence." It explained that "an airplane filled with Afghan Heroin and North Korean amphetamines was impounded at Argyle International Airport on St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean." Obama had been arrested for some unspecified connection to a ship that was carrying more than 4 tons of cocaine. The proceeds of the future drug sales were to fund ISIS, the post read. The story is nonsense, because obviously Obama had not been arrested. And he was too busy negotiating $400,000 for speaking appearances to smuggle cocaine. The AmericanFlavor.news post was the latest stop for a conspiracy theory that goes back a few weeks. The article linked to a YouTube video: See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com The video was created by Denise Stark, a conspiracy theorist who was citing an online radio show called Stillness in the Storm, a show its creators describe as "an ongoing conversation about world events, hidden truths, and empowering information." Stillness in the Storm’s website linked to a blog post written by Benjamin Fulford, who on March 31 had written the piece that later appeared on AmericanFlavor.news. Stillness in the Storm had warned on its site that "Fulford's claims should not be considered to be true without substantiation." Fulford, in turn, used his original post to link to a March 15 screed on WhatDoesItMean.com, a site rife with conspiratorial meanderings. The essay said that Obama had some nebulous link to a fishing boat called Lady Michelle, which had been busted in the Caribbean while smuggling cocaine. The post was written by Sorcha Faal, the pseudonym of a conspiracy theorist with a series of posts on WhatDoesItMean.com. Faal’s post makes some pretty big leaps in logic, including that George W. Bush and Obama operated cocaine-smuggling operations and that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had ordered their arrest. The photo that accompanied Faal’s post was of a ship called Lady Michelle, which had been stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard off the shore of Suriname on Feb. 16, 2017. Four Guyanese men were arrested for transporting 4.2 tons of cocaine worth about $125 million. There’s no mention of Japan, or any connection to Obama. Previously PunditFact had checked a claim that Obama was arrested at the Canadian border for wiretrapping Trump, which earned a Pants On Fire! rating. This post also is contrived, stemming from unfounded conspiracy theories that drew ridiculous conclusions and made provably untrue claims. We rate it Pants On Fire! See Figure 3 on PolitiFact.com
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