Fake News: Drug mule NOT Arrested After Diarrhea Ejects Cocaine in Middle of Airport

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Drug mule NOT Arrested After Diarrhea Ejects Cocaine in Middle of Airport

Was 27-year-old Tania Smith from Fort LAuderdale, Florida arrested at an airport in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil after a bout of diarrhea ejected the drugs she was smuggling? No, that's not true: the story came from a site that makes up stories about bizarre crimes and sex acts for entertainment purposes, it is not real and did not happen.

The story originated from an article published by World News Daily Report on June 4, 2018 titled "Drug mule arrested after diarrhea ejects cocaine in middle of airport" (archived here) which opened:

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | An American tourist was arrested after more than 40 of the pellets of cocaine hidden in her anal cavity were ejected by a severe case of diarrhea while she was standing in front of airport security officers.

27-year old Tania Smith, from Fort Lauderdale in Florida, was getting ready to board a plane back to the United States after spending two weeks in Brazil when the incident occurred.

The young woman looked visibly ill and feverish while waiting in line before boarding, and several witnesses said kept groaning and swearing loudly.

At the moment she was called up to present her ticket, she suffered a severe incident of diarrhea which ejected dozens of drugs pellets from her rectum, directly on the airport floor.

The woman in the picture is actually Amy Sharp from Sydney, Australia, who taunted the police via Facebook in 2016 saying they should use a better photo after she escaped from a corrective centre:

Teen on the run responds to police on FB asking them use better photo

Sydney teenager Amy Sharp escaped from corrective centre last Friday Police released two mug shots of Sharp, 18, on Thursday Shortly after Sharp responded to police asking them to use a better photo A Sydney teenager on the run responded to a police alert by asking them to use a more flattering picture.

The website World News Daily Report is a well known satire website specialized in posting hoaxes and made up stories. The disclaimer on their website is pretty clear about that even though you have to scroll all the way down the page to find it:

World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website - even those based on real people - are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle.

It is run by Janick Murray-Hall and Olivier Legault, who also run the satirical Journal de Mourréal, a satirical site spoofing the (real) Journal de Montéal. Very often their stories feature an image showing a random crazy mugshot found in a mugshot gallery on the internet or on a stock photo website superimposed over a background of flashing police lights or crime scene tape.

Articles from the site are frequently copied (sometimes even months or years later) by varous fake news websites that omit the satire disclaimer and present the information as real.

We wrote about worldnewsdailyreport.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

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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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