AI-generated clip of American naval fleet in Venezuela spreads online
- Published on October 23, 2025 at 20:49
- 2 min read
- By AFP Mexico
- Translation and adaptation Mia DOUGLAS , AFP USA
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The United States and Venezuela continue to step up counter-military measures following a series of boat strikes by US forces deployed to the Caribbean. But a video purporting to show multiple ships from the "US naval fleet" heading in formation toward the Venezualan coast is AI-generated and does not depict the vessels Washington has tapped for the mission.
"The U.S. naval fleet is advancing towards the coast of Venezuela," said a September 6, 2025 post on X, which included a clip portraying a fleet of ships sailing in formation.
"Everything indicates that Washington is about to attack and enter the country, setting off alarm bells throughout the region."
The video spread across Facebook, TikTok and X -- including in posts in Spanish and Portuguese -- as US President Donald Trump's administration has targeted vessels in the Caribbean as part of what Washington calls counter-narcotics efforts.
The strikes began September 2, with Trump claiming on his Truth Social platform that the targeted boat was crewed by Tren de Aragua gang members "transporting illegal narcotics" (archived here).
The United States did deploy warships with 4,000 US personnel to the Caribbean Sea near Venezuela, and American sources close to the matter told AFP on September 5 that Washington was sending ten F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico as part of the operation.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on October 22 announced two more strikes on boats in the Pacific that left five people dead, bringing the total number of such US attacks to at least nine, with 37 people dead, according to an AFP tally based on US figures (archived here).
However, the video shared on social media does not depict vessels involved in the situation.
In the bottom right corner of the clip, a watermark is visible for Veo, Google's generative artificial intelligence tool.
A tutorial for creating videos with Veo, posted by Google Workspace on YouTube, includes examples with the identical watermark (archived here).
AFP also examined the voice in the video, which can be heard saying: "Echo 1-6, ready for deployment. Bravo 7, standby."
An analysis of the audio using the Hiya.com voice-cloning detection tool within the Verification Plugin, also known as InVID-WeVerify, assessed that the audio is "very likely AI-generated."
Find more of AFP's coverage of misinformation targeting Latin America here.
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