Media outlets around the world reported a man died after surgery to look like a K-pop star despite numerous red flags.

The news that Saint Von Colucci, a 22-year-old Canadian-Portuguese actor, singer, and songwriter with pull in South Korea’s entertainment scene, died after undergoing surgeries to look like a K-pop star set media abuzz.

Von Colucci was reported to have undergone 12 plastic surgeries, costing more than $200,000, to resemble BTS member Jimin and overcome discrimination “against his Western traits”. He was said to have recently secured a role in an upcoming Korean drama.

The only problem is that Von Colucci may have never existed.

A raft of evidence suggests he is the product of an elaborate hoax using artificial intelligence that fooled dozens of media outlets, stretching from the United States and Canada to the United Kingdom, South Korea, India, Malaysia and the Philippines.

The debacle appears to be the first known case of AI being used to trick media outlets en masse into spreading misinformation, heralding the dawn of a new era of computer-generated fake news.

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