The Nigerian nationals in question were arrested in India for alleged cybercrime in August 2023.

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PesaCheck

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Nov 2

A post shared on X (formerly Twitter), with a video purportedly of two Nigerian nationals caught trying to escape Gaza with stolen money amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, is FALSE.

The post reads, “Breaking News: Two AfganEastern boys living in Gaza caught with a stolen money while trying to escape through Egypt/Gaza border (sic).”

The text across the video reads: “Two Nigerian boys arrested between Gaza and Egypt after they looted money from their Palestinian boss lady in Gaza doing the war and tried to escape.”

According to the narrator in the video, the men identified as “Chinaza and Ekperifuna” stole “1.6 million dollars” from their lady boss at a factory that “sells all sorts of lights” in Gaza.

A reverse image search of the screengrab of the two individuals in question on Google Lens established that the men were arrested in India and not Gaza, as alleged.

Images of the two were featured in an article dated 24 August 2023 with the headline, “Two Nigerian men arrested in India for allegedly posing as Europeans online and duping women in guise of sending gift parcels.”

According to the article, “The accused, Omenonye Sylvester and Alimeke Endurance Chukwuka, who had arrived in India on student visas, were arrested from their rented house in Tilaknagar, Delhi, by the Cybercrime Police on Wednesday, August 23, 2023.”

The article also includes a police statement from the Rachakonda cybercrime unit.

The cybercrime unit at Rachakonda in India reported the incident on 24 August 2023 and shared an official statement explaining the circumstances of the arrest. The authorities alleged that the two were using social media to dupe victims.

According to the police statement, the accused persons, both from Nigeria, arrived in India separately on student visas.

There is no information from a credible source on Nigerian nationals being arrested with stolen money from Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas conflict that erupted on 7 October 2023.

PesaCheck has looked into a post shared on X with a video purportedly of two Nigerian nationals caught trying to escape Gaza with stolen money amid the Israel-Hamas conflict and finds it to be FALSE.

This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.

By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.

Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.

This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Fact-Checker Peris Gachahi and edited by PesaCheck Senior Copy Editor Cédrick Irakoze.

The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editor Doreen Wainainah.

PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.

PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.