Alleged Mexican con man suffers multiple "deaths"

The victims of an alleged Mexican con artist have turned the tables on the culprit by making him the victim of every recent tragedy, according to media reports.

Photos of the man, known on social networks as "Alfonso," have appeared among the victims of the Orlando shooting, the EgyptAir crash and the Istanbul bomb blast, among other recent accidents and terrorist strikes.

Several media outlets noticed the photo of the same person kept popping up again and again on social networks as a possible victim of attacks and mishaps in different parts of the globe.

One typical Twitter post, accompanied by a photo of the man, went like this: "#Help my brother Alfonso was on #Ataturk Airport and we don't know anything about him, please help #Turkey."

On Wednesday, Mexican daily El Universal reported that French news network France 24 tried to get to the bottom of the mystery.

"If social media is to be believed, this man has already died at least three times since January of this year," the French site's fact-finding segment, called "The Observers," captioned a photo of "Alfonso" on Tuesday.

The site's investigators contacted the Twitter users "and they all told the same story. They said they knew the man in the photo personally and that he had cheated them out of money, ranging from fairly small sums up to about 1,000 U.S. dollars."

One of the users told France 24, "we decided to punish him by posting his photo online. Our goal is to ruin his reputation. We want the whole world to recognize his face."

Mission accomplished.

The French news network also contacted "Alfonso," not his real name, who appeared to verify the story.

He said he had tried to contact the BBC and the New York Times to let them know about the prank, "but they never responded." Enditem