Fake clip of Burkina Faso leader announcing trade deal with India circulates online

Published on September 23, 2025 at 09:06
3 min read
By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India

Burkina Faso's military junta leader Ibrahim Traore has distanced the country from former colonial master France ever since seizing power in a coup in September 2022. But a widely circulating clip that appears to show him announcing a grain deal with India is fake.

"India is creating new markets for itself. This is Burkina Faso's leader Ibrahim Traore. He has made a deal with India to buy food grain worth 14 billion dollars. Listen to what he is saying about India," reads the Hindi-language Facebook post shared September 7, 2025.

The video in the post, which racked up more than 149,000 views, purportedly shows Traore criticising the United States and Western powers while praising India.

"Some asked why India? Why not the United States, Europe, or others that came before? The answer is simple: the West came with chains disguised as contracts; they came with tariffs on our exports," Traore appears to say in English.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on September 16, 2025, with a red X mark added by AFP

Burkina Faso has turned away from its former colonial master France, and moved closer to Russia since Traore took power in 2022 (archived link).

A steady stream of viral social media posts -- many misleading or outright false -- has portrayed him as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed the country's dignity.

The footage circulated with similar claims on X and Facebook.

While India and Burkina Faso have millions of dollars in bilateral trade each year, a spokesperson for India's foreign ministry told AFP it had not struck the grain deal mentioned in the false post with Burkina Faso (archived link).

The clip also shows signs it was made with AI.

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes also found a longer version of the video uploaded on the YouTube channel "Traore The Unbeatable" (archived link).

The false post video corresponds with the 1:33 mark of the YouTube video (archived link).

The clip shows signs of manipulation -- Traore's lip movement does not sync naturally, his posture appears unusually stiff, the badge on his cap shifts between frames, and the speech sounds flat with no natural pauses.

Screenshot of the video with the visual mistakes highlighted by AFP

AFP Fact Check ran the video's soundtrack through an audio deepfake detector called DeepfakeTotal, which shows a "100 percent probability" that it was made with AI.

Further analysis using the Hiya voice-cloning detection tool within the Verification Plugin also assessed that the audio was "very likely" generated using artificial intelligence.

Screenshot of the Hiya interface, taken on September 23

The channel has uploaded several videos marked as made with AI (archived here, here and here).

AFP has previously debunked misinformation around Traore here and here.

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