False: Italians Throw Money on Streets During Pandemic

Ahmed Balousha

News

31st May 2020

False: Italians Throw Money on Streets During Pandemic

The image actually shows a bank robbery in Merida, Venezuela in March 2019 (Social media)

The Claim

Italians are throwing money onto the streets amid the coronavirus crisis.

News posted on

Emerging story

Social media users have been sharing posts claiming that Italians are throwing money onto the street amid the coronavirus crisis. A Facebook user posted: “People in Italy have thrown all of their money on the roads outside saying that this money is useless to save them from death.”
There is another video published on Youtube showing money thrown in the streets.

Misbar’s Analysis

A reverse image search reveals that the images were taken following a bank robbery in Merida, Venezuela in March 2019.
@SegoviaBastidas posted photos of the bank robbery. His description matches local new reports published in March 2019.
Venezuela’s old currency was replaced with the new Bolivar Soberano on August 20, 2018. Robbers discarded the bills in the streets, which had no value due to the currency change.

The claims on social media are false since the location of this incident is the Bicentennial Bank in Merida. The photographs do not show Italy and have no relation to the coronavirus. Instead, they were captured following a bank robbery in Venezuela in 2019.
The claims were marked as false on Facebook by Facebook independent fact-checkers.