Pro-Trump truckers falsely linked to empty shelves photo

"Looks like the truckers are following through with their threat to stop all deliveries to NYC," said Stew Peters, who has previously promoted conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and other topics, in a February 21, 2024 post on X, formerly Twitter.

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Screenshot from X taken February 27, 2024

The far-right commentator shared a post from an account called "Freight Bandit" that featured the photo and said: "I'm at a Whole Foods in Brooklyn rn."

Similar posts spread across X and other social media platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, days after a New York judge in civil court ordered Trump to pay $355 million in penalties for fraud and banned him from running companies in the state for three years.

The decision -- which Trump has appealed -- comes as he campaigns to seal up the Republican nomination and retake the White House in November, despite several criminal investigations. 

The day after Judge Arthur Engoron's ruling, Trump amplified on his Truth Social platform a video claiming truck drivers were planning to refuse deliveries to New York City in protest.

But the speaker in the video, who goes by "Chicago1Ray," later deleted the post and said he is "not no leader of any movement."

The photo of empty shelves is also old.

A reverse image search found the picture featured in a January 13, 2022 CNN report about grocery stores' struggles to stay fully stocked (archived here).

"Empty shelves at a Trader Joe's on Spring Street in New York City on Saturday January 8, 2022," the photo's caption says.

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Screenshot from CNN Business taken February 27, 2024

A Google photo for that Trader Joe's location -- in Manhattan, not Brooklyn -- appears to show the same meat and dairy shelves, divider and wall mural, confirming the location (archived here).

According to the CNN report, the January 2022 problems were driven largely by staffing shortages caused by the highly infectious Omicron variant of Covid-19, in addition to trucker shortages and disruptions caused by inclement weather.

Freight Bandit, the account that claimed the image was current and captured at a Whole Foods store, indicates on its bio that its page includes satire (archived here). The account appeared to make fun of "Chicago1Ray" in a subsequent post about the photo.

The same picture was also misrepresented days earlier by "Patriot Party Press," which included it in an article headlined, "NYC Trucker Boycott Leaves Empty Shelves: It's Only Day One."

The website is one of many affiliated with "America's Last Line of Defense," a network that "publishes false stories and hoaxes that are often mistaken for real news," according to NewsGuard, an organization that assesses websites' credibility.

The sites are run by Christopher Blair, who told AFP in 2020 that "confirmation bias" leads people to believe and share the articles.

AFP has previously debunked other misinformation stemming from Blair's sites.