Video of woman saying she 'cannot work with South Africans' AI-generated - no evidence she was fined for employing 'undocumented migrants'
IN SHORT: A video has been posted to Facebook with the claim that the woman shown speaking "refuses" to work with South Africans or, in some examples, has been fined R250,000 for employing "undocumented foreign nationals". But the video is AI-generated, and there's no evidence for her statement or the claim that she has been fined.
A wave of anti-immigrant sentiment in South Africa in 2026 has seen marches and violence across the country.
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A "deadline" of 30 June for foreigners to leave South Africa was announced by anti-immigrant groups, putting the country on edge.
Protest marches were seen across the country on the day, while some migrants fled South Africa, fearing for their safety. A number have been repatriated with the assistance of their national governments.
It is in this context that an interview, seemingly with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), is doing the rounds, with a woman saying she "cannot work with South Africans" as "they are very rude", and she will be moving her factory of 300 workers to Mozambique.
Other social media posts, including one shared in a Facebook group with over 100,000 followers, have used a screenshot from the video to claim that the woman was fined R250,000 for employing 23 "undocumented foreign nationals".
But what is the real story here? We checked.
Video manipulated using AI
The clip appears to have been edited using artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
We did a reverse image search of a screenshot from the clip and found the original video, posted to TikTok by DW Africa, a dedicated African news and programming division of Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany's public international broadcaster.
In the original video, the woman being interviewed speaks significantly slower than in the clip which has gone viral. While she does express sadness at "what is happening" and says that she has employed people from Zimbabwe, she does not say anything about not being able to work with South Africans, nor does she say she is moving her business.
In the edited version, the woman's voice has been sped up, and her accent is different. The audio doesn't always match her mouth movements. An SABC-branded microphone has also been added, whereas the original interview was conducted by DW.
No evidence woman interviewed was fined by police
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Is there any evidence that the woman interviewed was fined R250,000 for employing 23 "undocumented foreign nationals"?
The figures appear to echo a real police statement. On 27 June, the South African police said that an operation in the North West province had resulted in a farm owner being issued a R250,000 fine for "employing undocumented foreign nationals". The statement makes no reference to the farmer's gender.
But the woman interviewed by DW is a resident of Cape Town, in the Western Cape province. There is no evidence that she is the farm owner referred to by the police.
