Footage purportedly showing a looting spree in Mexico prompted by panic over the novel coronavirus was aired on multiple Facebook live streams and viewed by tens of thousands of people during the week of 3/23/20. Posts sharing the streams claimed that the chaotic scene was happening in real-time.
Other Facebook streams using the same footage, archived\xa0here\xa0and\xa0here,\xa0were shared with claims\xa0that the looting was happening in the Mexican port city of Veracruz., The same footage was also shared on Facebook as regular clips\xa0here\xa0and here, and on YouTube here, with similar claims., In the comments, some viewers questioned\xa0whether the footage was actually live., AFP recorded one of\xa0the Facebook streams, which at one point had more than 150,000 viewers tuned in. It soon became apparent that the clip was playing on a loop, with the same scenes repeating every few minutes., , For example, in the recording above, the scene where a man dressed in military uniform is seen walking at\xa00\05" repeats\xa0at 6\10"., Another example: the scene at 0\32" where a man clears items off a shelf and puts them in a white bin\xa0repeats at 6\42"., Footage from 2017, By searching on YouTube for the keywords “looting”, “Mexico” and “Veracruz", AFP\xa0came across a video\xa0with\xa0the exact same footage shown in the Facebook streams. But the clip\xa0had nothing to do with the pandemic: it was first published on YouTube three years ago., In 2017, Mexicans took to the streets to protest against a 20-percent hike in gasoline prices. The chaotic demonstrations led to a rampage in multiple stores, as reported here by AFP., The misleading stream came against a backdrop of stores being robbed and online calls for looting in Mexico as a result of the pandemic., , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
This footage of looting was filmed years before the pandemic | AFP Fact Check