The "Torenza" video is believed to be AI-generated

The viral story of a woman arriving at JFK with a passport from the non-existent country "Torenza" is a recent hoax, likely an AI-generated video that has spread on social media. It is not a real incident and is based on an older urban legend about a man from the nonexistent country of "Taured".

The story claimed the woman had arrived from Tokyo, her passport was flawless, and she was confused when told her country did not exist. Some versions claimed she was from a parallel dimension and vanished from custody. The video shows confused immigration officers and the woman reportedly saying, "Then this isn't my world".

The truth: The video is a work of fiction.

There are no official reports from JFK airport, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or credible news outlets confirming the incident.

Fact-checking quickly revealed the video was an AI-generated fiction and no such incident occurred. The episode is seen as a cautionary tale about misinformation created by AI.

The Torenza story was a modern version of a classic urban legend that has circulated for decades.

The story is a highly embellished version of a true event. In 1959, a con man named John Allen Kuchar Zegrus was arrested in Japan with a forged passport from a non-existent country (possibly a misspelled "Tuarid"). He was convicted of fraud and deported.

Another story says In July 1954, a man allegedly arrived at a Tokyo airport claiming to be from a country called Taured. When shown a map, he pointed to the area of Andorra, insisting his country had existed there for 1,000 years. He was detained in a hotel room with guards, but vanished the next morning without a trace.

Over time, the details of Zegrus's story were exaggerated into a mysterious tale of a time traveler or parallel universe visitor.