Claim
An old video of Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials counting cash has resurfaced with a false claim that it shows cash recovered after a raid at the house of an Aam Aadmi Party leader in Surat, Gujarat. BOOM received the video on its WhatsApp tipline (+91 7700906588) along with following texts, “AAP leader Shekhar Agarwal house was raided by ED, counting in progress.” The video is being circulated on Facebook with the same claim.
Fact
BOOM had debunked the video with the same false claim in September, 2022. The video is not from Gujarat’s Surat showing an Aam Aadmi Party leader's house being raided by ED officials. At the 30 seconds time stamp one can see a plastic bag with Bengali text on it. We also could hear people talking in Bengali which indicates the viral video is likely from West Bengal. A reverse search on the video keyframe led us to a video uploaded by India Today on September 11, 2022 with the title, "ED Radar on mobile gaming app scam! Over Rs 17 cr cash siezed and counting. Rittick Mondal gets us all the details from Kolkata". The visuals in this video report match the viral video and the same counting machines can be seen. The same video was also reported by NDTV India. The ED had carried out this raid on the premises belonging to a businessman named Aamir Khan, in a case relating to mobile gaming app, which was allegedly used to dupe money from people. BOOM at that time reached out to Mahendra Navadia, the district president of the Aam Aadmi Party's Surat unit in Gujarat. He denied the viral claim that an AAP leader had been raided in Surat; he also clarified that no such leader named Shekhar Agarwal existed in AAP. India Today reported on May 24, that the ED had raided the premises of Sarvesh Mishra and Ajit Tyagi who are close associates of AAP MP Sanjay Singh regarding a probe on Delhi’s liquor policy.