Social media videos claiming to show Iranian fishermen and local residents collecting iPhones, French perfumes and other luxury goods from the sea after a cargo ship sank near the Strait of Hormuz have not been verified, and fact-checkers say some of the footage appears to be fabricated.
An Al Jazeera open-source investigation published Oct. 17 concluded that several viral clips purporting to show such salvage were fake and did not depict real events. One video, promoted as showing iPhone boxes washed ashore after the sinking, was flagged by a detection tool as very likely AI-generated, fact-checkers said. Other clips show small boats moving among floating containers, including one that appears to show a boat towing a large shipping container. Whether that footage is genuine, or whether the goods came from the stricken vessel, has not been established.
The ship at the center of the claims is the GFS Pride, a Singapore-flagged container vessel with a capacity of up to 2,824 TEUs. It was damaged while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, caught fire and later sank. The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said all 21 crew members were rescued and no injuries were reported.
The cause of the sinking is contested. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy said the ship strayed into an unauthorized, hazardous route and struck a sea mine, which triggered the fire. Other officials have offered different explanations, and details on the vessel’s cargo remain unclear. Officials and fact-checking teams said the iPhone and perfume stories cannot be directly tied to the sinking.