MINNEAPOLIS — Alex Pretti was an intensive care nurse who cared for American veterans. He was also a 37-year-old U.S. citizen who was fatally shot by federal Border Patrol agents on a Minneapolis street on Jan. 24, 2026.
And almost immediately after his death, another battle began — this one over the truth about who Alex Pretti was.
A disturbing story began circulating across Facebook claiming Pretti had been fired from his nursing job months before his death because of allegations of inappropriate or predatory behavior toward patients.
There was just one major problem.
The story wasn't true.
Fact-checkers investigating the allegation found no evidence that Pretti had been fired for misconduct. Instead, evidence showed that he remained an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center at the time of his death.
Even more troubling, investigators traced the false story not to a hospital, police report or legitimate American news organization, but to what fact-checkers described as a Vietnam-based network pumping AI-generated misinformation into American social media.
The ‘Viet Spam’ Connection
Lead Stories traced one version of the fabricated story to BuzzReport247.com and reported that it was promoted through Facebook pages managed from Vietnam.
The fact-checking organization calls this growing phenomenon “Viet Spam” — networks that use artificial intelligence, fake or misleading Facebook pages and sensational headlines to generate viral stories aimed largely at American and European audiences.
The formula is straightforward: manufacture an emotionally explosive story, attach it to a recognizable person or breaking news event, push it through social media and collect advertising revenue from people clicking the link.
In Pretti's case, the misinformation appeared almost immediately after his killing.
The fabricated article claimed that Pretti had worked at “Lakeshore Medical Center” and had been terminated following complaints from patients' families.
But Pretti didn't work there.
He worked at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, caring for veterans in its intensive care unit.
The bogus story also quoted a supposed hospital executive named “Dr. Elena Vasquez.”
Fact-checkers found no evidence that this supposed executive had anything to do with Pretti's actual employer.
The false article couldn't even get Pretti's age right. It described him as 42. He was 37.
Pretti Was Still Working at the VA
Evidence from multiple independent sources directly contradicts the claim that Pretti had been fired.
The union representing federal employees identified Pretti as one of its members and an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA.
His colleagues described working with him there.
Patients described being treated by him.
A nursing student described spending months working alongside Pretti during a capstone preceptorship at the Minneapolis VA.
Pretti also held an active and unrestricted registered-nurse license at the time of his death, according to records reviewed by Lead Stories.
The Associated Press reported after his death that Pretti's father, Michael Pretti, described his son as a compassionate person who cared deeply about the American veterans he treated as an ICU nurse.
That is dramatically different from the portrait painted by the fabricated social-media stories.
A Fake Photograph Added to the Deception
The misinformation campaign went beyond fabricated allegations.
One viral version included a photograph supposedly depicting Pretti wearing a pink dress.
That wasn't Alex Pretti either.
Fact-checkers determined that the image appeared to be a digitally altered photograph of another person associated with the reality program “Fishtank Live.”
So the viral story had virtually every hallmark of manufactured internet misinformation: the wrong hospital, a nonexistent or falsely attributed executive, the wrong age, unsupported allegations and even a photograph of somebody else.
Yet it spread.
Pretti Was Killed by Border Patrol Agents
Pretti's death occurred during the Trump administration's immigration-enforcement operation in Minneapolis.
Although the incident has frequently been described online as an “ICE shooting,” the federal officers who fatally shot Pretti were associated with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, including Border Patrol, not ICE.
Pretti was a U.S. citizen.
According to reporting on the shooting, he was legally permitted to carry a handgun. Federal officials initially portrayed him as having threatened officers, but subsequent video evidence and reporting raised serious questions about those early descriptions of what happened.
A preliminary federal report obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune said a Border Patrol agent and a Customs and Border Protection officer fired their weapons during the confrontation.
The report did not say that Pretti threatened officers with his firearm.
His family strongly disputed the government's early characterization of their son and said Pretti had been attempting to protect a woman during the confrontation.
A Man Dies — Then the Internet Reinvents Him
There is something particularly disturbing about what happened after Alex Pretti's death.
People were entitled to debate his actions, the actions of federal officers, immigration enforcement and the circumstances that led to the shooting.
But disagreement over a controversial police shooting does not justify inventing someone's history.
Pretti's employment record should be a matter of fact, not ideology.
Either he was fired for misconduct or he wasn't.
The available evidence overwhelmingly supports the latter.
Alex Pretti was not fired from the Minneapolis VA for sexual or inappropriate misconduct.
The viral allegations were fabricated.
Snopes rated the firing claim false. Lead Stories independently investigated similar allegations and concluded that the story originated with a Vietnam-based spam operation using AI-generated content.
The misinformation illustrates a much larger problem facing Americans.
Artificial intelligence has made producing convincing fake news extraordinarily cheap. Operators thousands of miles away can manufacture stories about American political controversies within hours, build Facebook pages that resemble news organizations and distribute those stories to an audience already angry enough to share first and ask questions later.
Alex Pretti became an example of the human consequences.
A 37-year-old ICU nurse was shot and killed by federal agents. His death was already controversial enough.
There was no need to invent another story about him.
Whatever Americans ultimately conclude about the circumstances surrounding Pretti's killing, that debate should begin with facts.
And one of those facts is now firmly established:
Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse caring for veterans at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center when he died. He had not been fired for misconduct. The viral story claiming otherwise was fake — and evidence traced its distribution to the Vietnam-based misinformation ecosystem fact-checkers have dubbed “Viet Spam.”
The Vietnam connection is particularly well documented by Lead Stories: it reported that Meta transparency information showed the Facebook page spreading one version was managed from Vietnam and described it as part of a broader AI-driven “Viet Spam” operation. Snopes separately rated the firing allegation false, while AP reporting identified Pretti as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA at the time he was killed.
