An old Video of Burkha-clad women robbing a jewellery store in Yemen falsely shared as a recent incident in France
A video featuring two women wearing burkha is going viral on social media (here, here, and here). In the video, the women are seen robbing a jewellery store managing to evade the shopkeeper’s attention. The claim accompanying the video suggests that the incident took place recently in France. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Burkha-clad women stealing jewellery in France.
Fact: The video dates back to November 2019, and shows women stealing from a jewellery store in Shamila Market, Sana’a, Yemen. She was found with gold and cash, admitted to several robberies when caught. This is an old video from Yemen, not a recent incident in France. Hence, the claim in the post is Misleading.
A reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video led us to several social media posts (here, here, and here) with captions such as “A girl carries out a quick and dangerous robbery in a gold shop in Sana’a, Yemen” and “Gold theft / Yemen Sana’a,” which date back to November 2019. This confirms that the video is not recent.
Further investigation based on the description in these videos led us to multiple reports about the incident. According to these reports (here and here), the woman was apprehended at a gold shop in Shamila Market, and found with various pieces of gold and cash in dollars, Egyptian pounds, and Yemeni riyals. She admitted to multiple jewellery store robberies in the capital, Sanaa. Though she changed her get-up, the shopkeeper identified the stolen jewellery, leading to her transfer from Shamila police station to Al-Alfi Police Station for further investigation and legal action.
Sana’a is the capital of The Republic of Yemen. All this confirms that the incident is not recent and has nothing to do with France.
To sum up, an old video of Burkha-clad women robbing jewellery store in Yeman is falsely shared as a recent incident in France.