Year-old video of Mexican casino fire misrepresented as Iranian strike on Israel
- Published on March 3, 2026 at 10:54
- 2 min read
- By AFP Middle East & North Africa
- Translation and adaptation AFP Indonesia
Tehran lashed out with missile and drone strikes across the Middle East after a massive Israeli-US attack, but video circulating on social media of a building on fire does not show the impact of an Iranian rocket on an Israeli air base. The footage has previously circulated in posts and reports about a fire that broke out at a casino in northwestern Mexico in January 2025.
"Iran’s first attack on Israel on February 28, 2026," reads overlaid Indonesian-language text on a TikTok video posted on March 1, 2026.
The video shows a building engulfed in smoke and flames, and appears to have been filmed from an adjacent car park.
"Reports of fire and smoke at an Israeli air base following a missile attack; the situation remains unclear," reads its Indonesian-language caption.
The video was also shared elsewhere on TikTok as Iranian forces fired missiles and drones across the Middle East, claiming lives in Israel and the United Arab Emirates, in reaction to a massive Israel-US attack on the Islamic republic (archived link).
In Israel, an Iranian missile attack killed at least nine people and injured dozens more in the central city of Beit Shemesh, after a death the previous day near Tel Aviv.
The circulating video, however, shows a fire that occurred in Mexico more than year earlier.
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same footage posted on Instagram on January 16, 2025 (archived link).
Its caption says it shows a casino in the northwestern Mexican city of Culiacán.
A signboard reading "Royal Yak" was visible in the video, with subsequent keyword searches showing it is a casino in the city.
Similar visuals were included in local media reports, which said the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit (archived here and here).
Local authorities also posted about the incident on Facebook on January 17, 2025 (archived link).
The falsely shared video also corresponds to Google Street View imagery of the casino taken in 2022 (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked similar false claims using the footage, as well as other misinformation stemming from the war in the Middle East.
Copyright © AFP 2017-2026. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
