Colombian Police announce $3 million reward for suspect 'looking like' Facebook CEO

After Colombia’s government posted apparent perpetrators behind an attack on the country’s far-right President Ivan Duque, it triggered social media users to jokingly link Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to the incident. Colombian Defence Minister Diego Molano has been reportedly trying to convince the people that the leftist guerrillas opened fire on a helicopter transporting the president on Friday. While Molano was unable to produce any evidence to back his theory, the social media users jumped in with their own version of what they thought happened on June 25 owing to the resemblance of one of the sketches with Zuckerberg. 

In the aftermath of the incident, the Colombian National Police on June 28 shared two sketches of the two preparators on Facebook while offering a reward of 3 million dollars for helping with the arrest. The rough translation of the post says, “Help us locate them! These are the portraits spoken of the perpetrators of the attack on the helicopter carrying Mr. president Iván Duque and his entourage. Up to $ 3.000 million reward. Contact lines 3213945367 or 3143587212.” However, one of the portraits has caused a stir on social media due to its uncanny resemblance with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 

‘Mark Zuckerberg is the one’

From sharing Zuckerberg’s GIFs to memes, the internet users flooded the comment section of the Colombian National Police’s post on the site explaining why they think it’s the Facebook CEO. One of the internet users advised the law enforcement of the country saying, “Need to hire a better cartoonist” while someone else joked, “No wonder the Hptas offer so much reward.” Mocking the reward, one netizen said, “Use that money to train cartoonists.”

Apart from the sketch shared by the authorities, there is no other evidence pointing towards Zuckerberg being linked to the shooting on the Colombian President that left minor damage to the armoured Blackhawk helicopter used by the leader. On Friday, the helicopter was reportedly approaching Cucuta airport on a flight from Sardinata when several shots were fired at it, apparently from a rifle. At the time, Duque was accompanied by Molano and the interior minister Daniel Palacios and other officials. No one on board was injured.

IMAGE: Facebook/AP