Lighthouse Journalism found a video being widely shared on social media platforms. Along with the video, it was claimed that over 128 kg of gold, Rs 150 crore in cash, and 70 kg of diamonds were seized from the house of a priest of Tirupati Balaji temple. During the investigation, we found that the viral video is from a different incident, and there is no news of the priest being booked for theft recently.
Claim:
X user @SanjuSaran_ shared the viral video on her X profile.
Other users too are sharing the video with similar claims.
Investigation:
We observed the comment section of the post and several social media users commented that the video shared was false and that it belonged to a robbery in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore.
On running a keyword search we found news reports about the incident from 2021.
The images used were similar to the viral video.
The reports said: With an arrest on Monday, police claimed to have cracked a December 15 burglary at a popular jewelry showroom in Vellore and recovered 15.9 kg of stolen gold and diamonds worth Rs 8 crore from a burial ground in Odukathur.
We found a similar video on the X profile of Mahalingam Ponnusamy, a journalist posted on December 20, 2021.
we also found a few video reports about the robbery.
The robbery was also caught on CCTV camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1B_ULjKVaU
Recently, there has been no news of the house of any Tirupati priest being raided.
Conclusion: Video of gold seized after a jewelry showroom robbery in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, resurfaces with false claims of a raid at a Tirupati temple priest’s house.
