Fact Check

Were Several Men Arrested for Sexually Assaulting a Crocodile?

South African men did not revenge themselves on a crocodile that was eating their livestock by raping it.

Published Dec. 14, 2016

 (Wikipedia)
Image Via Wikipedia
Claim:
Brothers in Limpopo, South Africa, were arrested for raping a crocodile.

In December 2016, a story that three brothers in Limpopo, South Africa, were arrested for raping a crocodile that was attacking their livestock was widely spread on social media:

limpopo brothers

Four brothers and their cousins from Limpopo have been arrested after they captured a crocodile which had been eating their livestock and allegedly gang-raped it for days.

Reports are that the farmers(names withheld pending full investigations) who were gatvol with the crocodile which was eating their goats on a daily basis, set a trap and captured the reptile alive.

They then took the crocodile to their compound where they took turns to se_xually abuse the poor animal-believed to be a female- for days on end in one of their huts.

The brothers were exposed after Department of Parks and Wildlife launched an investigation after a tip-off from an anonymous whistle-blower.

While this story found a welcoming home in certain dark corners of the Internet as genuine news, and was picked up by several disreputable web sites aimed at mocking African culture, it contains not even a shred of truth. This story was originally published by the web site "iMzansi," a "satire" publication, on 18 October 2016:

Imzansi is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. Some of the news articles contained within iMzansi.co.za are fiction, and sometimes fake news.

Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to politicians and/or celebrities, in which case they are based on real people, but still based almost entirely in fiction.

iMzansi is intended for a mature, sophisticated, and discerning audience.

Only one crocodilian species is endemic to South Africa: the Nile crocodile. This formidable creature has a reputation as a man-eater, and in the photograph displayed with this fictional story is almost certainly dead.

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.

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