Fact Check: Did Italians Throw Their Money on Streets Amid Coronavirus Pandemic? Know Truth About These Viral Photos
Few pictures of money lying on the streets are being shared on Twitter and Facebook with captions like "The Italians have thrown their money on the streets. They say it's of no use to them now because they have no one to spend it on..." These pictures are going viral, but it is a fake claim. These pictures are about a year old and from Venezuela.
Italy is among the worst countries to be affected by the deadly pandemic of Coronavirus. The death toll in the country is very steep, with over 12,000 deaths and total infections over a lakh since the outbreak. But amid all these reports, there are even more devastating fake news that is being shared online, targetting the crisis there. Few pictures of money lying on the streets are being shared on Twitter and Facebook with captions like "The Italians have thrown their money on the streets. They say it's of no use to them now because they have no one to spend it on..." These pictures are going viral, but it is a fake claim. These pictures are about a year old and from Venezuela. Fact Check: Did Italian Prime Minister or President Cry on Camera Amid Coronavirus Pandemic? Here's Truth Behind Viral Picture Post.
The pictures shared online show a lot of currency notes lying on empty streets. These pictures are from Venezuela. The money seen in these pictures is the old currency which was replaced by a new form of currency, the Bolivar Soberano in August 2018. The fact-checking site Snopes had also done a fact check on these pictures before. It states, when the Bolivar Soberano was introduced, Bolívar Fuerte currency in amounts less than 1,000 ceased to be legal tender. So the currency seen in the pictures is all worthless money. Now these same pictures are being used to spread fake news about Italy.
Check Fake Post on Italians Throwing Out Money in Streets:
Fake news is spreading like wildfire on social media these days, targetting the crisis of Coronavirus. The grave situation of Italy in this pandemic has been targetted even before. A few days ago, a post claiming Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has announced the country's surrender to the Coronavirus outbreak was going viral. In this, even the picture of the Italian PM was wrong and there were definitely no such claims. A lot of such fake reports are coming online, but we urge our readers to not believe in them without checking the authenticity.
Fact check
Italians threw money on the road as they don\'t need it anymore, following so many deaths in the country because of Coronavirus.
The claim is fake, the pictures are from Venezuela.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 01, 2020 10:14 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).