trump internet rumor
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Keene, New Hampshire September 30, 2015. Internet rumors suggest that alleged cartel boss Joaquín Guzmán Loera put out a hit on Trump following a feud on social media. There’s little evidence to support the theory. REUTERS/Gretchen Ertl

Did notorious cartel boss Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán Loera put out a contract on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump? On Monday, state-funded media outlet TeleSur shared a rumor that El Chapo had put a $100 million bounty on Trump’s head. But is the rumor true?

Guzmán could afford it. He is reportedly a billionaire, and has been ranked on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people. Guzmán has also reportedly ordered hits of Americans before, including an FBI agent. Trump claims that the two have beef.

After the alleged Sinaloa cartel leader escaped from a high security prison in Mexico, and after Trump made disparaging remarks about Mexicans, Trump told reporters that El Chapo had issued death threats against him. The business mogul responded with threats of his own on social media, and reported the messages suspected to come from El Chapo to the FBI.

Yet evidence of the reported $100 million dollar bounty appears to be unfounded. TeleSur picked up the story from HNGN.com. HNGN borrowed the news from Most Extreme News which, just to give an idea of what that site is like, also ran this headline today:

"Bin Laden Audio Tapes Prove AL-Qaeda NEVER Declared War On U.S.A."

Is El Chapo’s reported bounty on Donald Trump’s head just another internet conspiracy? We can’t prove that the Mexican cartel leader doesn’t want to kill Trump. But we did follow the internet rumor to what we believe is its original source (if you can find an earlier verion of this rumor, let us know.)

The website is literally called the Conspiracy Club.

On June 20, 2015, conspiracyclub.com published a story with the headline “El Chapo Puts $100 Million Bounty on Donald Trump Dead Or Alive!” It quoted an anonymous inmate with no biographical details or additional sources.

Here’s the choice paragraph from Conspiracy Club.

“'He was mad. He wants Donald Trump dead and will pay any amount of money if meant he could have Donald Trump’s head' explains an unnamed inmate. Donald Trump is apparently aware of the bounty and has beefed up his security team and has also began wearing a bullet proof [sic] vest. Despite fearing for his safety, Trump still plans to run for president in 2016.”

For now, we’ll chalk up this rumor with the likes of "NASA : ‘Petroglyphs and Statues Discovered on Mars.’"

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