People in Italy are threw away their money after they lost their family members to coronavirus.
Italy has witnessed over a lakh confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus with over 12,000 deaths and over 15,000 recoveries, as per the Johns Hopkins data., CLAIM, Now, a set of pictures are viral on social with the claim that relatives of people, who have passed away due to the novel coronavirus in Italy, are throwing money on the streets., The pictures show currency notes lying scattered on the streets., The images are being widely shared on Facebook with the same claim., (Click here for live updates on COVID-19. Also visit Quint Fit for comprehensive coverage on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.), TRUE OR FALSE?, The claim along with the images is false. The images are old and are not related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in any way., IMAGE 1, We conducted a Google reverse image search which led us to a tweet posted in March 2019 in which the same image can be seen. The tweet mentions that a bank was looted in Merida in Venezuela and people left the money on the street., The bicentenario bank in Merida was looted, people left the Venezuelan bolivars behind and left the money on the street and set fire to piles of Venezuelan bolivars to prove its worthless #Venezuela #SinLuz pic.twitter.com/YJlT2qFPrY, Consequently, we did a keyword search in Spanish “Saqueador bancaria merida” (Translated: Merida bank looted) and found an article published by Venezuela’s media outlet Maduradas.com., The article when translated using Google translate mentioned that images date back to 11 March 2019 when some people looted a bank in Merida and had scattered old currency on the street and had put some of it on fire., IMAGE 2, We did a Google reverse image search and found that the same image was shared in April 2019 by Professor Steve Hanke, Applied Economist at Johns Hopkins. As per the tweet, this image, too, is from Venezuela., Trash fills the street gutters in #socialist #Venezuela. Indeed, this is trash: Venezuelan #Bolivars. pic.twitter.com/Fll6PGxOgM, While we have been able to confirm that the image is old and not related to the coronavirus pandemic, The Quint has not been able to independently verify the image., You can read all our fact-checked stories on coronavirus here., "(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and well fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)", "Well get through this! Meanwhile, heres all you need to know about the Coronavirus outbreak to keep yourself safe, informed, and updated.", The Quint is now available on Telegram & WhatsApp too, Click here to join., Stay tuned with our weekly recap of what’s hot & cool by The Quint.
COVID-19: Old Photos Used to Claim People Throwing Money in Italy