The brother of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was forced to publicly shut down a circulating rumor claiming he was at the center of a fentanyl trafficking scheme.
Gabriel Ocasio-Cortez, 32, took to TikTok to respond to a video spreading a bizarre claim – that AOC’s brother, wrongly named as ‘Matthew’ in the allegation, had been arrested on Lake Superior after US Coast Guards caught him in possession of $1.2 million worth of fentanyl.
As the actual brother of the Democrat Congresswoman, Gabriel quickly squashed the viral lie, duetting the creator’s post with a pointed caption that read: ‘don’t make me sue’.
‘I’m the brother,’ Gabriel said in his TikTok. ‘My name’s not Matthew. I have no idea why they’re posting this.’
‘I work with the homeless,’ he added. ‘I have nothing to do with this story, which isn’t real. Please find something better to do with your time.’
On Tuesday, the creator in question had posted a video to the popular app, appearing in front of what seemed to be a screenshot of a recent news article.
‘AOC’s brother has just been charged with trafficking fentanyl,’ the creator confidently stated in the since-deleted video, all while pointing at the ‘news source’ behind her.
The fake news quickly spread across a variety of social media platforms – including Facebook, Instagram Threads and Twitter – with the TikTok video alone garnering more than 50,000 likes before its removal.
Hellbound and Down 