This video actually shows fish on a beach in Mexico
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on July 1, 2020 at 05:12
- Updated on July 8, 2020 at 05:44
- 3 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
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The video was published on Twitter on June 9, 2020. It has been viewed more than 177,000 times.
The one-minute 14-second video shows a group of people collecting fish on a beach.
The post’s Indonesian-language caption translates to English as: “Why did these fish in Bali died on the seashore? @BNPB_Indonesia.”
A yellow-coloured subtitle imposed on the clip reads: “these fish happened at a Bali beach.”
“BNPB_Indonesia” is the official Twitter account of the Indonesian Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB).
Bali is a province and a resort island in Indonesia.
The clip has also been watched more than 3,100 times after it was published with a similar claim on YouTube here, here and here; on Facebook here and here; and on Twitter here.
The clip has also been posted with claims in Spanish and English that it was taken in Panama, in Venezuela or in Acapulco, Mexico.
The claims, however, are misleading.
A reverse image search and a subsequent keyword search on Google found it was previously published on Facebook here on April 2, 2020.
The post’s caption reads: “COMONDU FISHING. #COMONDU. Fishing in Puerto Adolfo Lopez Mateos.”
The same video was also posted on April 2, 2020, here.
The caption says: “Fishing in Puerto Adolfo López Mateos
“TONS OF FISH CAUGHT BY FISHERMEN OF PTO. LÓPEZ MATEOS, BCS !!
#Attention In the fishing community of Puerto Adolfo López Mateos Baja California Sur, fishermen manage to cast a gill net (Chinchorro) and catch tons of fish.”
Puerto Adolfo Lopez Mateos is a seaside town in Comondu, a municipality in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur.
License plate
The clip in the misleading post briefly shows a car license plate at the 54-second mark as seen in the screenshot below:
A Spanish-speaking AFP journalist analysed the plate number in the video and found that it corresponds with plate numbers issued by Anapromex, a Mexican company that helps register vehicles from other countries.
Below is a screenshot of an Anapromex license plate found on its website:
Below is a screenshot comparison between the plate in the misleading clip (L) and the plate on Anapromex website (R):
On its website, Anapromex lists the names of Mexican states where it operates: Baja California Sur is one of them, but not Guerrero, where Acapulco is located.
AFP contacted one of the fishermen at Adolfo Lopez Mateos, who confirmed his son was involved in the fishing and one of his grandchildren appeared in the video. He said that the fishes were caught using a net.
“These are pompano fishes ... they caught between 10 and 12 tons,” said the fisherman, who asked to remain anonymous. “It does not happen every day.
“For us, as fishermen, it’s a fortune to catch a product like this; it’s a relief.”
UPDATE: This story has been updated on July 8, 2020 to add comments from a fisherman.
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