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| - A series of Facebook posts claiming that a “serial killer” is on the loose are fake.
The posts appear in several local buy and sell Facebook groups around England. One such post, aimed at residents of Milton Keynes, reads: “URGENT: ATTENTION!! Please lock your doors properly and stay vigilant. A Dangerous Hispanic Serial Killer Dairo Antonio (52) is breaking into people’s houses and robbing them before shooting them to death here in #Milton keyness
“Warn others. He has many counts for child abduction. He is also going around preying on elderly people, vandalizing parked vehicles. He ruthless and very dangerous. Antonio is armed so if you see him please do not approach just call the police. LET'S BUMP THIS POST AND HELP WARN OTHERS [sic].”
The posts are accompanied by mugshot-style photographs of a man with marks on his face. Other posts for groups based in Wordsley in the West Midlands, the Lake District and the county of Hertfordshire are identical except that the location has been changed.
However, the claim in the post is false. A reverse image search shows that the man in the photograph is actually Jose Armando Mejia, who was arrested in Mexico in May 2024 after 22 years on the run following a shooting in Texas. He was reported to have been extradited to the United States where he is currently in custody.
Thames Valley Police, which covers the Milton Keynes area, confirmed to Full Fact that it is not seeking the man in the photograph. Neither West Midlands Police, Cumbria Police or Hertfordshire Police has reported any incident matching the details of the posts in recent weeks.
We regularly fact check hoax posts in Facebook groups, such as reports of missing children, elderly relatives or pets. We have seen instances in which these sorts of posts are edited later to claim to offer cheap housing, links to surveys or other freebies, with comments often disabled so other social media users are unable to identify the posts as a hoax.
Hoaxes can damage people’s trust in local community news, because groups can become overwhelmed with false information. As a result, genuine posts may be ignored or dismissed as false.
We have written to Meta expressing these concerns and asking the company to take stronger action in response to this problem. We also have a guide with seven ways to spot if a Facebook post you’ve seen may be a hoax.
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