Italian streets are littered with Euro notes, as Italians throw cash away in coronavirus crisis.
Two photos showing thousands of banknotes scattered in a street have been shared on Facebook with the claim they were taken in Italy., “Italian streets littered with Euros. They say they don’t need them. It’s not about money anymore but if you’ll wake up tomorrow. Their lives are at stake,” the post reads., As at 5 April 2020 Italy had the world’s highest death toll from the coronavirus pandemic, and the third highest number of Covid-19 cases after the US and Spain., But does the photo show cash thrown away by despairing Italians?, Reverse image searches reveal that both photos were taken many months before the new coronavirus was first identified in China, in December 2019., A search for the first photo shows it was in circulation as early as 19 March 2019 alongside others under the title “Venezuela Street Scenery”., It also appeared on Brazilian fact-checking website, identified as an old valueless Venezuelan currency thrown in the street by bandits who had robbed the Bicentenario Bank in Merida., “Since these banknotes were worth absolutely nothing, the bandits spread the banknotes through the streets adjacent to the bank branch and even burned some amounts. Apparently, even bandits are protesting the economic situation in Venezuela,” the article says., Venezuela rolled out a new currency in 2018 in a bid to manage inflation. This made the old currency worthless., A search for the second photo shows it was also online months before the Covid-19 outbreak. It appeared in a Twitter post from 12 March 2019 that also detailed the looting of Bicentenario Bank., Using Google Translate, Africa Check translated the word “Bicentennial Bank looted” into “Banco Bicentenario saqueado” in Spanish, Venezuela’s official language, and searched for it on Google., Several articles on the incident appeared. One website shared tweets showing photos and videos of the incident. – Dancan Bwire, , "A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”. What should you do? First, dont delete!", Click on our guide for the steps you should follow., Publishers guide, Africa Check is a partner in Facebook’s third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media., The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it., You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how., Africa Check is working with the CoronaVirusFacts/DatosCoronaVirus Alliance, a coalition of more than 100 fact-checkers fighting misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic., Learn more about the alliance here., , © Copyright Africa Check 2020. Read our republishing guidelines.\xa0You may reproduce this piece or content from it for the purpose of reporting and/or discussing news and current events. This is subject to: Crediting Africa Check in the byline, keeping all hyperlinks to the sources used and adding this sentence at the end of your publication: “This report was written by Africa Check, a non-partisan fact-checking organisation. View the original piece on their website", with a link back to this page., We depend on voluntary donations to run this site. Please help us to keep public figures accountable by supporting the project., Find out more, For democracy to function, public figures need to be held to account for what they say. The claims they make need to be checked, openly and impartially. Africa Check is an independent, non-partisan organisation which assesses claims made in the public arena using journalistic skills and evidence drawn from the latest online tools, readers, public sources and experts, sorting fact from fiction and publishing the results., , Get a weekly dose of facts, straight to your inbox.
Italians throwing away cash in coronavirus crisis? No, photos of old Venezuelan currency dumped by robbers | Africa Check