As former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro entered a plea of not guilty to U.S. federal narcotics charges on Monday, a wave of digitally manipulated content and misrepresented footage continued spreading across social media platforms. The disinformation campaign gained significant momentum when former President Donald Trump amplified fabricated narratives through his Truth Social platform.
Among the most widely circulated falsehoods was a video Trump presented as evidence of Venezuelans celebrating Maduro’s apprehension. Comprehensive verification reveals this footage actually depicts University of California, Los Angeles students participating in their traditional ‘Undie Run’ event from December 2023. Clear landmarks including the Wasserman Football Center and Luskin Conference Center establish the authentic location, while the original TikTok posting from December 11 confirms the event’s true nature.
A second misrepresented video, also shared by Trump, purported to show massive celebrations in Caracas following Maduro’s alleged capture. Fact-checking analysis confirms this footage actually documents the July 2024 electoral protest demonstrations in Venezuela. The presence of opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González on a parade float, along with verified media coverage from the period, confirms the video’s actual context.
Additionally, sophisticated AI-generated images depicting Maduro in U.S. custody circulated widely across social platforms. These fabricated visuals, bearing the watermark of a self-described ‘professional in artificial intelligence,’ showed Maduro surrounded by figures wearing DEA and military insignia. Trump further complicated the information landscape by sharing an image captioned ‘Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima,’ despite its evident inconsistencies and lack of verification.