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In May 2024, news appeared in the media and social networks that the stepson of Ukrainian businessman Victor Pinchuk paid more than €8 million to a Madrid casino to pay off the unpaid debt of the American writer. We checked whether such publications are reliable.
On May 1, a video with the logo of The European Times began to spread in Russian Telegram channels, which claims that the stepson of Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk Roman allegedly paid €8 million to the Casino de Madrid located in the Spanish capital. The money covered the debt of the writer Ernest Hemingway that had existed since 1959, and Pinchuk Jr. also left a tip of €700,000 to the staff. They wrote about this generous act, for example, “Arguments and facts", EADaily, "Mriya" And portals, dedicated gambling. The video, allegedly created by The European Times, was posted on their pages by users “Zena", Facebook, X And Instagram. The news also spread on Telegram. Channel Gura Anton (108,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) commented on it like this: “The Ukrainians are fighting so that Pinchuk and his son can easily give €8 million to who knows.” Authors of the channel "Cat Kostyan"(96,000) added: "While some crests are running and begging all over the world, other crests are having fun and drunkenly paying off the debts of the dead. An ideal history of Khokhlism.”
Victor Pinchuk is one of the richest people in Ukraine, in 2024 Forbes magazine assessed his fortune is $2 billion. Among the businessman's main assets are pipe-rolling production and several large television channels. In 2002, Pinchuk married Elena Franchuk, the daughter of the second president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma, and became the stepfather of Roman Franchuk, who was born in 1991, Elena’s son from her first marriage. By data journalists at the beginning of this year, the billionaire’s stepson took his last name and lives in the USA.
The European Times logo video is a slideshow with text subtitles. They say:
“The stepson of Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk paid off Ernest Hemingway’s debt to a Spanish casino in the amount of €8 million. The writer's debt to the Casino de Madrid was the oldest in the history of a casino in Spain. In 1959, Ernest Hemingway lost an amount equivalent to today's €8 million. A year later, the writer committed suicide, and the debt remained unpaid. This weekend, Roman Pinchuk, the stepson of Ukrainian billionaire and philanthropist Victor Pinchuk, paid the gambling establishment the full amount of his debt. A source from among casino employees reports that that evening Pinchuk left tips worth about €700,000, that is, in total, spent almost €9 million Ernest Hemingway was a fan of gambling from a young age and spent large sums in casinos and horse racing. According to some historians, huge gambling debts were the real reason for the writer’s suicide.”
The titles at the beginning and end of the clip about Pinchuk are the same as those that The European Times usually uses in its videos. However, the style of presenting information is significantly different. In the original videos of the publication (they are published, for example, on its YouTubechannel) a voice-over is used that reads out the text of the news, and in the video about Pinchuk, information is presented exclusively in the form of subtitles superimposed on photos and videos from open sources.
On the website The European Times, in his official accounts in YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, X and other social networks there is no news about Pinchuk’s stepson and the Spanish casino. In addition, at the time of writing this analysis, not a single large and authoritative Spanish media outlet published articles about the fact that the stepson of the Ukrainian billionaire paid off Hemingway’s debt.
The writer actually visited Spain in 1959. “Verified” studied excerpts from three biographical books about Hemingway, which described in detail the summer of 1959, which he spent in Spain. Authors of biographies (Carlos Baker, Jeffrey Meyers, Mary Dearborn) mention the smallest details - for example, what fee Hemingway received for a story about bullfighters published in a magazine and what hotel room he stayed in during his visits to Madrid. However, none of the books mentions that Hemingway allegedly lost a huge amount at the Casino de Madrid.
Additionally, the video incorrectly claims that Hemingway committed suicide in 1960, a year after his supposed casino loss, and that poker debts allegedly caused his suicide. But in fact, the writer lived until mid-1961 and, as believes most reputable historians, biographers and psychiatrists, shot himself due to progressive mental illnesses that included bipolar disorder, alcohol addiction and possible borderline personality disorder.
“Verified” was also unable to find any information about the “oldest debt in the history of gambling in Spain,” which Hemingway allegedly never paid to the Madrid casino. In 2023, the Spanish magazine The Objective published article about the financial difficulties of the Casino de Madrid, which was threatened with a fine of €230,000. According to experts quoted by the author of the article, a fine of such an amount would have serious consequences for the financial position of the organization, whose budget is €3.4 million. Probably, if Roman Pinchuk had really paid the casino €8 million, information about this would have appeared in the Spanish media.
According to the TGStat service, the earliest publication of a fake video about Pinchuk appeared in the Telegram channel “Sheikh Tamir» May 1 at 18:10 Moscow time and received 291,000 views. This channel has been done many times featured in analyzes “Verified” as the primary source of fake news. Similar videos that imitate videos DW, Al Jazeera, euronews, BBC, Reuters, Fox News and other Western media, regularly appear in pro-Kremlin Telegram channels.
Thus, the video about Victor Pinchuk’s stepson that went viral on Telegram is a fake. Claims about Hemingway's debt to a Madrid casino, which Roman Pinchuk allegedly paid off 65 years later, are not supported by any information in authoritative sources.
Update dated May 15, 2024: After the publication of the analysis, “Verified” received a response from The European Times. The publication confirmed that it has nothing to do with the fake video.
Cover photo: Telegram
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