Cash retrieved from water pipe: 2021 Video of raid on Karnataka PWD staffer’s house viral with false claims – Alt News

A video is viral on social media that shows several men removing sections of a water pipe, and then retrieving bundles of cash which were hidden within the pipe. Social media users have claimed that this raid was carried out by government officials on a PWD engineer’s house in Delhi, and they had retrieved Rs 19 crores in cash.

Twitter Blue user Vineet Gupta posted the video on August 2 with the claim that the money was hidden by a central government employee from Delhi. (Archive)

दिल्ली में केंद्रीय पीडब्ल्यूडी के इंजीनियर के घर छापा,19 पानी के पाईप काटकर 13 करोड़ बरामद। pic.twitter.com/Og64Gp7le5

— Vineet Gupta (@aapka_vineet) August 2, 2023

Several other users, like @priyarana3101, @liveankitknp, @syedsaim_rauf, @ManojYaSp have also tweeted with the same claim.

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The video is also viral on Facebook with the same claim.

Alt News received requests on its WhatsApp helpline to fact-check the video.

Fact Check

Alt News ran a relevant keyword search on Twitter and came across a tweet from media outlet CNN News 18 which shared on November 24, 2021. According to this tweet, the raid was carried out by anti-corruption bureau (ACB) agents on a PWD junior engineer’s (JE) house in Kalaburgi, Karnataka.

#WATCH | ACB officials find money in the Pipeline of PWD Junior Engineer Shanta Gowda’s house in Kalaburagi, #Karnataka pic.twitter.com/mbNnhSRu40

— News18 (@CNNnews18) November 24, 2021

The incident was also covered by news outlets like The Quint, The Hindu, The News Minute, and Scroll.

The report in The Hindu identified the JE as Shanthagouda Biradar. He was attached to the Jewargi sub-division of PWD. His house was at Gubbi Colony in Kalaburgi.

A video showing the cash bundles being retrieved by the ACB was also uploaded by Hindustan Times on November 25, 2021.

According to reports, Karnatak’s ACB had undertaken this operation in relation to unaccounted assets of government employees. The video shows a raid being carried out on the house of a junior engineer from the PWD. A sum of 13 Lakh in cash was recovered from the house pipe alone, and around 54 Lakh was seized in total.

To sum it up, a 2021 video from the Kalaburgi district of Karnataka is being passed off as a recent case from Delhi. The amount seized by the anti-corruption bureau from the house pipe was 13 Lakh, and not 13 Crore, as suggested in the viral claims.

Prantik Ali is an intern at Alt News.

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