Colombia toll plaza footage misrepresented as trucks illegally entering US

"MASSIVE CONVOY OF CARTEL TRUCKS JUST OVERRAN A U.S. BORDER PATROL CHECKPOINT IN #ARIZONA #cartel," says a December 29, 2023 post sharing the clip on X, formerly Twitter.

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Screenshot from X taken January 8, 2024

Similar posts claiming the footage shows trucks full of "illegal immigrants," the "Mexican cartel" or "drugs" and "weapons" breaching the US border with Mexico spread across X and other platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. Some iterations of the video on TikTok racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

"Southern border," text over the clip says.

The posts came shortly after US officials visited Mexico seeking more efforts to curb migration, which has surged in recent months and led to gridlock in Washington, where Republicans have demanded sweeping measures in exchange for President Joe Biden's requested funding for Ukraine and Israel.

House Republicans are also pressing impeachment proceedings against Biden's homeland security chief, further inflaming political tensions over the worsening border situation ahead of the November election.

But the footage of cars and trucks zipping past a toll plaza is unrelated to the US-Mexico border -- it was filmed in Colombia.

"This video is old and doesn't represent anything (or) any place in the US," said Robert Daniels, a public affairs specialist for US Customs and Border Protection in Arizona, in a January 9, 2024 email.

Colombia protest footage

Reverse image searches indicate the video has been online since at least September 19, 2023, when it appeared in TikTok and Facebook posts saying it showed the Pipiral toll on the Vía al Llano, a freeway that connects the Colombian capital of Bogota with the city of Villavicencio (archived here and here).

The Facebook post from Colombian marketing firm Oriente Al Revés says the clip shows people on September 19 raising the toll gates and passing without paying amid protests in the area.

Coviandina, the operator of the highway, said in a series of social media posts that some protesters had been blocking sections of the road -- including near the Pipiral toll -- leading to closures on September 19 and September 20 (archived here, here, here and here).

AFP contacted Coviandina for comment, but no response was forthcoming.

Spanish-language media reported the demonstrations were meant to draw government support for communities surrounding the highway, which had suffered economically because of landslides and other incidents that caused frequent road closures, damage and fatalities in 2023.

The Colombian magazine Semana featured the Pipiral toll footage in a September 21 video report, saying it showed drivers raising the gates as part of the protests over the freeway's constant shutdowns (archived here).

Google Maps Street View imagery from the Pipiral toll appears to show the same plaza, including matching booths, yellow concrete structures, stoplights, barriers and road markings (archived here).

Meanwhile, Garrett Archer, a journalist for ABC15 in Arizona, said in a December 29 X post (archived here) that the state does not have a border checkpoint resembling the one in the video.

Arizona border patrol checkpoints AFP located via Google Maps do not resemble the toll in the video (archived here, here, here, here and here). Nor do various legal ports of entry that appear in Google Maps Street View images (archived here, here, here and here).

AFP has previously debunked other misinformation about the US border with Mexico here, here and here.