Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority said in an Oct. 14 notice that a Singapore-registered cargo ship was hit by an unidentified projectile while transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Oct. 13, caught fire and sank, with all 21 crew safely evacuated; the notice gave no cargo manifest. Videos then spread showing iPhone boxes floating at sea and fishermen salvaging goods, and according to a Hongshin News report on Oct. 18 cited by IT之家, the clips drew more than 80 million views on social platforms. Open-source investigators traced the footage by reverse search to an Instagram account, Nativora, which describes itself as making fictional AI imagery and posted the videos on Oct. 16 with an explicit "AI Content" label. A Huxiu AI article also noted that some Chinese outlets kept republishing the story even though the presence of a large shipment of new iPhones was never confirmed, and turned a support agent's conditional "if true, we'd follow procedures" line into an "Apple responds" headline.