No evidence image of bundles of cash is from the floods in Maiduguri, Nigeria

IN SHORT: A photo of bundles of money covered in dirt is circulating on Facebook with the claim it is from the flooding in Maiduguri, Nigeria. However, we have found no evidence to support this claim.

"This is among many things that were found during the Flood in Maiduguri, bundles of different currencies stained in the mud," reads a post on a public Facebook group with over 291,000 members.

The 27 September 2024 post features a photo of bundles of money covered in mud.

The city of Maiduguri is in Borno state, northeastern Nigeria.

On 10 September, heavy rains caused the Alau Dam to burst, devastating the city and surrounding areas. The floods caused widespread damage to homes and infrastructure and affected almost 400,000 people.

In response, the Nigerian government mobilised relief efforts to provide food, shelter and medical assistance to those affected.

The same claim can be seen here and here. (Note: See more instances at the end of this report.)

But was this money found during the Maiduguri floods? We checked.

No evidence it's from Maiduguri floods

Africa Check ran the photo through a Google reverse image search and found that it appeared mostly on Arabic-speaking social media accounts.

For example, one user posted it on 21 September with a caption in Arabic, but gave no details about where the photo was taken.

The Instagram account northern_khartoumstudents also posted the same image. Khartoum is the capital of Sudan, a country in northeastern Africa.

A closer look at the cash also confirms our suspicion, as some of the bank notes appear to be Sudanese £1,000 and £100 notes.

An online search for the claim led to a 22 September news report with the same photo. We translated the report using machine translation and found it reported that money hidden in a warehouse in Sudan was washed away by floodwaters.

We found no proof that the photo is from the floods in Maiduguri, Nigeria.

Similar posts were found here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.