A video of some people removing cash from a pipe is going viral with a claim that it shows a recent raid at an engineer's house working at the Public Works Department (PWD).
What have users said?: People shared the video with a caption that said, "In Central Government PWD department engineer’s house raid in one pipe Rs 13 crores recovered, 19 pipes are still pending to check. We all should learn a little bit basic economics, how Indian economy remains sustainable (sic)."
An archive of the post can be seen here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
(You can view other archives of similar posts here, here, and here.)
What is the truth?: The video could be traced back to November 2021, when the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) conducted a raid at a junior engineer's house working in PWD in Karnataka.
How did we find out?: We performed a keyword search on Facebook and came across a post dating back to November 2021, which carried the viral video.
It was uploaded with a caption that said, "Cash being removed from a drainage pipe at a PWD junior engineer house during Anti-Corruption Bureau raid in Karnataka."
An archive of a different post can be accessed here.
News reports: The Quint published a report in 2021 which said that bundles of cash were retrieved from a drainage pipeline during a raid conducted by ACB in Karnataka.
The incident happened outside the residence of a PWD engineer named Shantha Gowda Biradar.
The video shows a plumber digging out the currency. It went viral on social media on 24 November 2021.
The report further said that the raid was purportedly a part of a statewide crackdown on alleged corrupt government officials.
The report was published on 25 November 2021.
(Source: The Quint/Screenshot)
A report in The News Minute added that around Rs 13 lakh was recovered from the drainage pipe.
The ACB officials conducted a raid at the engineer's house in Kalaburagi and seized around Rs 54 lakh in cash.
The report further said that the officials were seen collecting all the cash falling out of the drainage pipeline in a yellow bucket — which one could see in the viral video.
English daily Hindustan Times, on their official YouTube channel, posted visuals from the raid which also shows people collecting money in a yellow bucket.
Conclusion: An old video of ACB officials conducting a raid at a junior engineer's house in Karnataka is being falsely shared on the internet as a recent incident from the state.
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