President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca has been targeted by fake news tricksters, just one month after her office was forced to issue a statement denying false reports that her husband Edgar had passed away. 

A news report doing the rounds on Facebook claims that Malta's president has beaten the likes of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Bill Gates and topped Forbes' 2017 list of the world's most powerful people. 

The article, published on a website titled Global News, makes the grammatically incoherent claim that "a number of appointments by the Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca have represented significant gains for Malta and members of the Forbes assessment team recently told the Guardian the Malta is remarkably improving to its peak under her administration."

READ: First gentleman Edgar Preca is alive and well

Unsurprisingly, the claim is untrue and Malta's head of state does not feature on Forbes' 74-person list, which features Russian president Vladimir Putin, US president Donald Trump and German chancellor Angela Merkel in the podium spots. 

Edgar Preca was the victim of another fake news article just one month ago.

Just last month, Ms Coleiro-Preca's office was forced to issue an official statement reassuring the public that first gentleman Edgar Preca was alive and well, after a fake news site claimed that he had passed away after suffering "acute stomach pain". 

The Global News website which published claims about President Coleiro Preca's sudden ascent to the top of the world leadership pile combines genuine news, often pilfered from reputable sites such as the UK's Telegraph, with out-and-out made-up stories. 

Examples of fake news carried on the site include an article claiming Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe ended ties with the US following Donald Trump's election, or that two Ugandan pastors were executed in Saudi Arabia for "fornication".