This video has circulated online since 2020
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 25, 2021 at 13:17
- 2 min read
- By AFP Pakistan
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The video has been viewed more than 4.4 million times here on Facebook since it was published on August 17.
The post's Urdu-language caption translates as: "Dollars in the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan".
The video circulated online as the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, prompting international organisations to suspend aid and loan programs with the country.
The same video and a similar claim were also posted here, here and here on Facebook.
But these posts have shared the video in a misleading context: the footage had circulated online for more than a year before the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021.
A reverse image search found local news organisation Pajhwok Afghan News published a longer version of the video in a report on its Facebook page on February 12, 2020.
The Pashto-language post translates to English as: "A minute-long video of a dollar warehouse recorded 22 days back has been posted on social media and appears to have been recorded in a mud room in Afghanistan.
"Unconfirmed reports say the dollars belonged to a former official and were obtained by security forces in Samangan."
Samangan is a provincial town in northern Afghanistan.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared by Pajhwok Afghan News (L) and the video in the misleading posts (R):
The longer video shared by Pajhwok Afghan News contains a frame that shows a piece of paper scribbled: "January 20, 2020".
Below is a screenshot of the frame:
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