Craigslist ad was “recruiting people for LA ‘protests.’”

With Los Angeles’ anti-immigration raid protests in the national spotlight, one Craigslist ad fueled conspiracy theories that the demonstrations are staged. 

“Looking for the toughest badasses in the city (los angeles),” the June 5 ad read. “Seeking extremely tough, brave men for new crew I’m building.”

The job description came with hefty compensation of $6,500 to $12,500 per week. 

The ad has been taken down, but pictures of it were shared on social media by accounts that linked it to the Los Angeles protests. 

“Insane. Who’s paying people $12,500 A WEEK to riot in California?” read a June 9 X post with 5 million views. 

A woman in a TikTok video posted the same day described the ad as evidence of “paid agitators” in LA. 

But the ad was unrelated to the protests. It was a hoax published a day before the first protests started. 

Online prank show “Goofcon1,” which streams on YouTube and to paid subscribers on Patreon, hosted a June 6 livestream during which the host, Joey LaFleur, called the ad “the new goof that we have cooked up.”

LaFleur said that he posted a similar prank ad in the Austin, Texas, area. The show’s hosts read from the responses they got and prank-called some of the ad’s respondents. 

When PolitiFact contacted LaFleur about the ad, he pointed us to an Associated Press fact-check about the claims.

“I literally had no idea it was ever going to be connected to the riots.,” LaFleur told AP. “It was a really weird coincidence.”

“The boys down at @goodcon1 just goofed their way into a national false flag operation,” read a June 10 Instagram post that LaFleur reshared in his stories.

(Screenshot from Instagram.)

LaFleur’s co-host, Logan Quiroz, also made fun of the situation on his Instagram account.

This isn’t the first time that Craigslist ads figured in misleading online claims that political efforts are recruiting paid participants. In 2020, we rated false a claim about an ad soliciting “anti-Trump protesters.”

Since the Craigslist ad was created as a prank before the Los Angeles protests, we rate this claim False.