The Instagram account NiTanTikky and the X account Global_Census published a photograph of an alleged airline reservation in the name of Edmundo González Urrutia’s daughter, but the data contained on the same photographed page allow us to determine that the information is false. In a message sent to Espaja, Mariana González also denied that she is planning a trip outside the country.
Text: EsPaja
On Sunday, September 1, the Instagram account NiTanTukki posted a photo of an alleged airline reservation for a trip from Bogotá, Colombia, to Madrid, Spain. The name Mariana del Carmen de Tudares González can be seen on the photographed paper. The account uses this image to write that this is a trip that one of the daughters of opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia will be making: “This information has unleashed a wave of speculation among users, who suggest that González could be taking her family out of Venezuela. Could this be the prelude to her own departure from the country?”
But the information is false.
Several elements on the same photographed sheet indicate that it may be a fabrication.
1. The booking code for the flight HVTYUF does not exist, as confirmed by a query on the website of the airline in question, Air Europa.
2. The paper indicates that the travel agency that processed the airline ticket is called Viajes FlyTravel, with no website but a Miami address and phone number +1 305 4878760. An Internet search reveals that there is a travel agency with that name, but it does not use that logo or share an address or phone number. Viajes Fly Travel is not based in Miami either.
3. Public records on the Internet show a travel agency called Fly Travel USA LLC, based in Miami, Florida. In this case, the contact number does not match the one shown on the photographed paper. Neither does the brand, since the official website of this company shows that its trademark is Fly Luxury. Furthermore, this agency only works with airlines in the Star Alliance and One World alliances, which include Iberia but not Air Europa (which is part of the SkyTeam alliance).
4. The phone number that appears on the photographed paper as if it corresponded to Viajes Fly Travel, +1 305 4878760, is the contact for the company Rental Power Solutions, a supplier of power plants located in Miami, which shows it on its website.
5. The address shown on the photographed paper, which assigns it to Fly Travel, 8950 NW 53RD, STE 264-934, Miami, FL 33166, does not exist. On that street, located in Doral as can be seen on Google Maps, the last stretch of commercial premises have the number 8650 before the road reaches its end. The street ends without the 8700 series beginning.
On the other hand, Edmundo González Urrutia’s communications team sent Espaja a message from his daughter Mariana González in which she denies that he has planned a trip outside the country: “There is no trip or departure from Venezuela planned. I am and will continue to be in Venezuela with my family supporting my father.”
They also confirmed that Mariana González does not use her married name on her passport (if she did, it would be González de Tudares and not “de Tudares González”, as appears in the document shown by NiTanTukky).
*Read also: Edmundo González did not attend the third summons of the Public Prosecutor’s Office
The NiTanTukky account is present on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). According to Cazadores de Fake News, it is the pseudonym of the Venezuelan influencer Keisbel Giménez, responsible for astroturfing operations – flesh-and-blood operators who try to position topics on the public agenda, pretending to spontaneously talk about them, but hiding their true intention.
In X, the photograph began to be distributed, for example by the Global Census account, on the morning of September 1, stating that “users on social networks speculate that Edmundo González would be gradually taking his family out of Venezuela to, finally, leave himself,” although at the time of that message being published the comment had not been shared on social networks, beyond the Instagram account of NiTanTukky, who also spoke of “a wave of speculation among users” when before the publication on these accounts there was no previous record of the image on social networks.
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