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TikTok posts

stated on June 9, 2025 in a video:

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

Protester Annie Jones holds a U.S. Flag upside down as a sign of distress while California National Guard stand behind a barricade in Santa Ana, Calif. on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP)

By Maria Briceño June 12, 2025

Craigslist ad wasn’t ‘recruiting’ paid protesters in LA. It was a prank

If Your Time is short

This Craigslist ad was posted June 5, a day before the Los Angeles protests started.
It was created for an online prank show called "Goofcon1."
The show’s host, Joey LaFleur, told The Associated Press the ad was related to the protests.

See the sources for this fact-check

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.

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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."

X posts

stated on June 8, 2025 in X posts

Video shows a police car burning during June 2025 Los Angeles protests.

"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.