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| - Fact Check: Old incident of diplomat's arrest in Ukraine for smuggling revived amid ongoing war
India Today's Anti-Fake News War room found that the arrest and seizure by Ukrainian authorities as claimed by the social media post actually took place last year.
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India Today Fact Check
This incident of arrest and seizure by Ukrainian authorities took place in February 2021 near the Ukraine-Poland border. Recently, Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation (DBR) donated $1 million seized from that incident to the armed forces.
A photo of a box full of currency notes has gone viral on social media with the claim that Ukrainian authorities arrested a diplomat who was trying to smuggle money and gold from the country.
Several Twitter users shared the image with captions like: “The Ukrainian Investigative Bureau has arrested a Ukrainian diplomat while he was trying to smuggle $140,000, 68,000 euros, 12 kilograms of gold bars and 13.8 kilograms of gold jewellery.”
The India Today Anti-Fake News War room ( AFWA) found that the claimed arrest and seizure by Ukrainian authorities actually took place in February 2021 near the Ukraine-Poland border.
The viral posts are archived here and here.
AFWA PROBE
With the help of a keywords search, we came across a Ukrainian news report titled, “The DBR will transfer $1 million of the seized funds to the Armed Forces”.
As per the report, the State Bureau of Investigation (DBR) had confiscated about $1 million worth of gold and foreign currency, and valuables from a Ukrainian embassy employee in the EU last year.
“At the Yahodyn checkpoint on February 28, 2021, during a search of a diplomatic minibus, DBR investigators found and seized almost 68,000, more than $140,000, more than 12 kg of gold bars, and gold jewellery weighing 13.8 kg,” the report said.
Taking this as a clue, we looked up the website and the social media accounts of Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation (DBR).
The DBR announced a donation of $1 million to the Ukrainian government for the army’s needs on March 17.
The Facebook page of the DBR also shared details about this donation. It confirmed that the DBR had seized gold and currency worth about $1 million from one of the employees of the Ukrainian Embassy in the EU who attempted to illegally take them abroad. Now “these funds are transferred to the state budget and can be used for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” a post on the DBR’s Facebook page read.
“At the checkpoint of Yagodin of the Volyn Customs Service on February 28, last year, investigators of the DBR conducted an inspection of a diplomatic minibus, in which almost 68 thousand euros, over 140 thousand US dollars, over 12 kilograms of gold bars and gold jewellery with a total weight of 13.8 kg, and a lot of cigarettes were seized,” a rough translation of the post said.
This seizure was a joint operation conducted by the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) and the DBR. Both the SSU’s and the DBR’s Twitter accounts had posted about this operation on March 1, 2021.
The verified YouTube channel of the SSU had shared a video of the seizure on March 1, 2021. The details given in the YouTube video were the same that shared by the DBR in their press note recently about the donation.
The same incident was also reported by international news agencies last year.
Thus, it is clear that an old incident of an arrest of a diplomat was falsely claimed to be recent.
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You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
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