A four-year-old video showing stacks of cash recovered from a spare tyre in Bengaluru is circulating on social media with claims falsely linking it to the upcoming Karnataka Assembly elections.
BOOM found that the video shows cash recovery from a vehicle en route to Shivamogga from Bengaluru following an IT department raid on April 20, 2019 during the Lok Sabha elections.
The southern state of Karnataka will go to polls on May 10 and the results will be declared on May 13.
The video shows the presence of at least four people helping recover bundles of cash stuffed inside a spare tyre.
The video has been tweeted with the caption, “Forget RTGS, forget NEFT, Forget IMPS, forget mobile banking... here is THE method of funds transfer - tyre transfer, discovered during #KarnatakaElections! #bribes #KarnatakaAssemblyElection2023”
Watch the video here and here for an archive.
The video has been shared on Facebook with the same claim. View the Facebook posts here and here.
Fact Check
We ran a keywords search using ‘cash from tyre’ on Google and found several reports on the incident.
HW English uploaded a video report on their YouTube channel on April 21, 2019 with the title, “#Election2019: I-T officials seize 2.30 crore cash stuffed inside a tyre in Karnataka's Shivamogga”.
Further keywords search led us to more reports about the cash recovery from the tyre incident.
On April 20, 2019, the Decan Herald reported that a sum of Rs 2.30 crore cash was seized by Income-Tax officials. According to the I-T department, the bundles of Rs 2,000 denominations were being transported by stuffing them inside the spare tyre of a vehicle en route to Shivamogga from Bengaluru.
NDTV reported on April 21, 2019 that a cash handler was intercepted, and his vehicle was searched where the spare wheel was found. The intelligence department suggested that the person was accumulating cash for distribution for the Lok Sabha poll purposes.
The same incident was also reported on The News Minute on April 21, 2019. People in Shivamogga cast their votes on April 23 of that year.