Today, news spread through the Chicago community that one of the most famous Balkan restaurants in and around Chicago, Skadarliya, was the scene of a raid by immigration service agents.
Allegedly, dozens of ICE officers stormed the popular restaurant during lunchtime, occupying the parking lot with several vehicles and blocking the street, and a photograph began circulating on social media showing recognizable vans in front of Skadarliya.
The drama lasted for several hours, as many Serbs, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Bosnians… frequent the place exactly at that time, but it eventually turned out to be a false alarm.
In fact, to be more precise, someone intentionally spread a “rumor” about a raid at the restaurant, constructed a photograph using AI, artificial intelligence, to cause panic and deliberately put the owner and staff in an awkward situation.
The owner of the “Skadarliya” restaurant, Nenad Bojkovski, says he left the restaurant just before the story spread.
–I was surprised, because local police officers stop by the place for lunch every day, and I never had similar problems. I called the manager and it turned out that the news was false, more precisely invented, Bojkovski tells Serbian Times.
He adds that upon returning to Skadarliya, he reviewed the security camera footage:
-In the video, I saw a parked van across the street from the restaurant, which was standing there for some time and from which the controversial photograph was obviously taken, which was later mounted.
UNSUCCESSFUL HOAX: The van from which the disputed photograph was most likely taken
The restaurant owner says he is disappointed:
-I can’t understand that such things cross some people’s minds. The door of my restaurant and my house is open to everyone, regardless of nation or religion, I have always been and will continue to be a good host. And those who did this should think about it, maybe one day they will be ashamed, concludes Nenad Bojkovski, who adds that this is not the first time something similar has happened, and that last summer someone launched a rumor that he was seriously ill and had sold the restaurant.
“May your neighbor’s cow die,” they would say in the Balkans.
In this case, the saying could be: “May your compatriot’s cow die” – because it is obvious that this hoax is the work of someone close, someone “ours,” someone from the Balkans.
We remind you that a few days ago, a news story and a photograph, also mounted with the help of AI, were published on a website in Serbia, showing the flag of the so-called Kosovo hanging next to the Serbian tricolor on the Consulate General of Serbia in Chicago.
The Consulate denied the news and the photograph, but a bitter taste remained that sometimes, in the Balkans or even this far, across the ocean, we don’t need enemies.
We are our own worst enemies.
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Author: Antonije Kovačević Photo: Restoran Skadarliya – AI montaža