Doctored news report shared in Indonesia 'magic money' scam
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on March 22, 2023 at 10:20
- 4 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
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The video has been viewed more than 29,000 times since it was posted on Facebook here on March 3, 2023.
The clip, which is nearly two minutes long, first shows a presenter for Indonesia's news outlet Tribunnews introducing a news bulletin.
It then cuts to show a man wearing a white Muslim cap sitting among banknotes strewn on the floor.
At the 26-second mark, the voice of another woman narrating the purported news report says: "A video that has gone viral shows proof of a magic money withdrawal done by a person named Syeh Abdul Segaf, who has a high level of supernatural knowledge."
She adds: "We, the Tribunnews news team, want to tell people with economic problems such as wanting to expand their business, having debts, wanting to own a house or having other financial problems that they can contact Syeh Abdul Segaf."
It is not clear who "Syeh Abdul Segaf" is.
The Facebook post also advertises a WhatsApp number to access a cash scheme. Contacted by AFP, the WhatsApp line asked for personal information including full name, address and a copy of an identity card, in order to check eligible to receive the "magic money".
The same video attracted an additional 6,600 views in similar Facebook posts, including here, here, here and here.
Some posts mention the name "Syeh Abdul Segaf", while some cite another name. However, all posts included WhatsApp numbers that asked for personal information in exchange for cash.
Edited news report
Reverse image searches found the original Tribunnews report, which aired on November 30, 2021. The original report does not mention "Syeh Abdul Segaf" nor a "magic money" scheme.
After the anchor introduces the programme, she gives a summary of top news stories, including the death of a 20-year-old Islamic preacher and a shooting near Jakarta.
The bulletin then cuts to the funeral of the Islamic preacher, Ameer Azzikra.
The fabricated news report also includes various unrelated old YouTube clips.
At the 0:26 mark, the false video shows a man in a white Muslim cap sitting among piles of cash on the floor. This matches to a scene in a YouTube video, posted in January 2013, about Taat Pribadi, a "magic money-making" cult leader in Indonesia.
In the first three minutes of the 2013 video, Taat can be seen wearing a white robe while sitting in a chair and throwing money to the floor. At the 3:40 mark, it cuts to the man in a white Muslim cap. The genuine video does not identify who the man is.
Taat, who gave himself the Indonesian royal title "Dimas Kanjeng", attracted huge attention following viral videos of him dressed in flowing white robes sitting on a chair and performing a ritual that ended with him producing fistfuls of money and throwing it onto the floor.
But his cult fell apart when he was convicted of murder in August 2017 and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
His cult fell apart after he was arrested for muder in 2016 -- he was sentenced to 18 years in prison the following year.
The second scene of the false video, at the 0:49 mark, shows two women counting piles of money. It was taken from this December 2021 YouTube video, titled: "Only now we saw money worth 4.1 billion rupiah" -- which is equivalent to $270,000.
The third scene, at the 1:27 mark, shows piles of banknotes on a table. It previously appeared in a YouTube video, posted in October 2021, about people counting one billion rupiah ($65,000) banknotes.
Neither of these two videos say anything about "magic money".
Below are a screenshot comparisons of the scenes in the doctored news report (left) and the genuine YouTube videos (right).
Furthermore, the voiceover in the doctored news report was created using text-to-speech software.
AFP used TTSFree.com to convert the audio in the report to text and then back to speech, selecting the Indonesian language and the "Gadis" voice option. The resulting audio is identical to the voice heard in the video.
Meanwhile, a different doctored news report circulated in Facebook posts advertising a similar scam.
Similar videos, shared here, here and here, which appear to show another news report promoting the "magic money" service of another person, have racked up more than 20,000 views.
The original broadcast from Indonesia's news programme Liputan 6 -- dated March 12, 2020 -- does not mention any such scheme.
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