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Someone shared ZW (Zimbabwe) News article on Facebook. I don't believe it is true.

According to the story, three brothers in Limpopo, South Africa attempted to rape a crocodile after being told it would improve their sex lives, but were killed by it.

The quest to become bedroom warriors turned into a tragedy after a Limpopo family lost three sons in a crocodile attack. A family known for its bedroom curse of failing to perform when it matters most (during intercourse) fell in deadly jaws of the strongest reptile after a Sangoma gave them muthi and instructed them to go and rape a female crocodile.

A search for the story shows a few sources but they appear to be all pretty much copy & pastes of each other (suggesting just one source). The image has a play button superimposed on it, even though it isn't a video makes it even less credible.

But none of the links were to a debunking site like snopes.com. Also the link above also seems to report "straight" seeming news.

Oddthinking
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1 Answers1

15

Although that webpage had protection to avoid anyone easily copying their image, I was able to find it in the source code and do a reverse image search.

The earliest source I found for the image was SAfrognews on Twitter (October 12, 2016) - which predates the December 8, 2016 date on the ZW News article):

BRAVE Limpopo men catch crocodile after chasing it all over the Levubu River

The image on Twitter doesn't have the non-fuctional play button super-imposed, and the man on the right isn't censored with pixelization.

The apparent origin of the "raping a crocodile" story also turned up in the reverse image search:

Limpopo Brothers Gang RAPE crocodile that had been EATING their livestock

Fauxtire – 19th October 2016

Four brothers and their cousins from Limpopo have been arrested after they captured a crocodile which had been eating their livestock and allegedly gang-ra_ped it for days.

...

Reached for a comment one of the brothers who talked to iMzansi reporters said they didn’t see anything wrong in punishing the predator that had been preying on their livestock. ” We are not at all attracted to crocodiles or any animals for that matter. We just wanted our revenge, to punish her real hard,” he said without showing a single shred of remorse.

While the story is slightly different (nobody died, they did it as revenge), there is one key word here: "Fauxtire" - i.e. fake satire.

ZWNews appears to be ripping off this fake, satirical article, adding photograph from another source, and trying to pass it off as real news.

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Laurel
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