The story claiming that Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman declared war on the Islamic State after the latter destroyed a drug shipment belonging to the Sinaloa Cartel has turned out to be a hoax. The story first appeared on Cartelblog.com, a website covering the war on drugs, which said the Islamic State had destroyed drug shipments that were meant for Middle Eastern countries aimed at the "growing nightlife scene" there.
The blog claimed that Guzman sent an encrypted email to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi which was later leaked.
"You (ISIS) are not soldiers. You are nothing but lowly p******," a supposedly incensed Guzman wrote. "Your god cannot save you from the true terror that my men will levy at you if you continue to impact my operation."
"My men will destroy you. The world is not yours to dictate. I pity the next son of a w**** that tries to interfere with the business of the Sinaloa Cartel. I will have their heart and tongue torn from them," he finished.
However, Steve Charnock, a satirist working for Thug Life Videos, told the Daily Mail he was the author of the original story. He revealed that his boss came up with the idea of gang members getting into fights with terrorists, and that all of his work are comedy pieces and shouldn't be taken seriously.
He notes that mainstream news sites, such as the New York Post, FOX News and Forbes, picked up the story and failed to verify the information.
"It was satire, faux news," said Charnock. "It got a few shares on Facebook initially, but now it is the top story on some websites."
