On Monday, Boing Boing and Art News shared an article about a shady Chinese billionaire killed by some shady Chinese hooch, causing some smug readers to shout "karma."

According to the report, "notorious" Hong Kong businessman Dingxiang Loeng died at his own 50th birthday party after opening an over-carbonated, possibly counterfeit champagne bottle and hitting himself in the head with the cork.

Unfortunately for the Internet's armchair Punishers, the too-good-to-be-true tale of cosmic justice is both bad and false. The story comes from fib-tellers World News Daily, whose website bears the disclaimer "All news articles contained within worldnewsdailyreport.com are fiction, and presumably fake news."

Additionally, web editors should have noticed a number of red flags in the article itself, which names Leong as 51 on the Forbes list of Hong Kong's 50 richest people and is illustrated with an improbably gruesome photo from 2012's Lamma Island ferry collision.

Both Boing Boing and Art News have since taken their posts down, but the story continues to spread online, amassing tens of thousands of shares. Sadly, at this time death by champagne cork remains strictly theoretical.

[Image via Shutterstock]