PSP police in Faro have debunked a hoax warning on Facebook about an armed gang of foreigners who were allegedly attacking people and had already killed a young man in the downtown area of Faro.
The fake warning had already been shared by hundreds of people.
“Do not walk alone in downtown Faro and other nearby areas. Avoid the area as much as you can in the coming nights. There is a group of foreigners with guns, with no mercy for anything or anyone. Last week a young man was the target and unfortunately he did not survive,” said the hoax text.
The Faro district command of PSP police has already denied the message, saying that there is no such group “terrorising locals”.
“It is completely false,” the police force said in a statement.
A PSP police source also assured that Faro’s downtown area is “heavily patrolled” at night by officers, so if any cases like those described in the warning had happened the police would know about them.
This is not the first time that PSP police are forced to deny fake rumours about violent gangs in the Algarve.
In 2009, several people in the region, including many of our readers, received text messages and emails warning people about a ‘clown face gang’ operating in the region (click here) which also turned out to be a hoax.
A similar hoax warning has also been exposed in Lisbon. A Facebook post warning people about a ‘vigilante’ who was “acting like Batman” and shooting criminals near the city’s Colombo shopping centre was also making the rounds of social media, but the national PSP Facebook page has since confirmed that the text is another hoax.
