Have you seen a mysterious video showing a countdown clock allegedly from Luigi Mangionethe 26-year-old “person of interest” in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week in New York? The video went viral Monday on YouTube, garnering attention from sites like Pirate News. But it’s completely fake.
Mangione reportedly had a “manifest” as well as a ghost gun and was arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday. He was charged with five felonies, including carrying a weapon without a license, forgery, falsely identifying himself to authorities, and possessing tools of crime, according to a criminal complaint. Published online. But Mangione has not been charged with Thompson’s murder nor named as a suspect, despite the fact that the Internet is treating him as a suspect.
A video surfaced Monday that appears to be from a YouTube account linked to Mangione. It opened with “The truth” and “If you see this, I’m already under arrest.” It featured a countdown clock that first counted from 5 to 1 before flipping to 60 and counting down to zero from there.
The bottom right corner contained the word “Coming Soon” and briefly flashed the date December 11 before disappearing again in less than a second. It ended with the phrase, “Everything is decided, be patient.” Goodbye now.”
If you’re interested in what the video actually looks like, you can Check it hereassuming YouTube doesn’t remove this as well. We promise that we are not trying to scam anyone with it. But it might be interesting to know what all the fuss is about after some hoax went viral but you missed it.
The account was created back in January 2024, and it’s entirely possible for anyone to set up some sort Dead man switch– They schedule a video to be posted at some point in the future, with the goal of stopping the automatic posting if they aren’t caught (or killed, or whatever the scenario). But YouTube confirmed to Gizmodo that it’s not real.
“We have terminated the channel in question for violating our policies covering impersonation, which prohibit content intended to impersonate another person on YouTube,” a spokesperson for the video platform told Gizmodo via email on Monday.
The spokesperson continued: “The channel’s metadata has been updated following widespread reports of Luigi Mangione’s arrest, including updates made to the channel’s name and handle.” “In addition, we have terminated 3 other channels owned by the suspect, in accordance with our Creator Responsibility Guidelines.”
The spokesperson also noted that these accounts have been dormant for months. Who is actually behind the video? This is still unknown. But our money is going to something related to cryptocurrencies. Who knows?