By Hazel Gandhi
Social media posts showing old photos of jewellery and cash being recovered from raids by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) have been peddled as items recovered from Lalu Prasad Yadav's properties. BOOM found that the visuals are dated and unrelated to the raid at Lalu Prasad Yadav's house.
The ED recovered "proceeds of crime" amounting to Rs 600 crore from the recent raids in Mumbai, Patna, Ranchi, and New Delhi in connection to the alleged land for job scam. Former Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and deputy CM of Bihar Tejashwi Yadav are among the people questioned for their alleged role in the scam. They have been accused of offering people jobs in the railway in exchange for land parcels gifted or sold for cheaper rates to them and their family.
Five pictures claiming to be from Lalu Prasad Yadav's home have been shared online and linked to these ED raids. The photos show jewellery, bundles of cash, and gold coins in huge quantities.
The caption reads, "गरीबों का बनावट मसीहा बन चुका है लुटेरों का मसीहा! “लैंड फॉर जॉब" Lalu Prasad Yadav , Tejashwi Yadav ,@Rabaridevirjd"
Click here to view.
Click here to view.
The post is also circulating on Twitter.
Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.
Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.
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FACT-CHECK
Image 1: Heaps of cash on a bed
The first photo shows heaps of cash laid out on a bed in a formation that spells 'ED'. BOOM ran a reverse image search and found several news stories from September 2022 that carried the same photo.
Click here to view.
According to this report by India Today, the ED carried out a raid at Kolkata businessman Aamir Khan's house in connection with a gaming app scam and recovered Rs 17.32 cr. A report by Hindustan Times also carries the same picture. Read here.
Here is a comparison of the viral photo and the original photo:
In 2022, BOOM had debunked the same image when it was being shared as part of a viral video claiming to show a raid at an AAP leader's house in Gujarat. Read our fact-check here.
Image 2 and 3- Boxes of jewellery
We found two images of the jewellery boxes and bangles on the ED's official Twitter page. According to the post, the items were recovered from different locations across Nagpur and Mumbai and were related to the investment fraud by Pankaj Mehadia, Lokesh & Kathik Jain.
The tweet also mentioned that jewellery worth Rs 5.51 cr and cash of Rs 1.21 cr were recovered from the search. It does not mention any raid related to Lalu Prasad Yadav or the land for job scam.
Here is a comparison of the viral image to the original image:
Image 4 and 5- Gold coins and cash
A keyword search on Twitter led us to a tweet by ANI about the ED's raids at 24 locations across the country in relation to the alleged land for jobs scam. The tweet carried two photos from our viral claim.
According to the tweet, "Unaccounted cash of Rs 1 Crore, foreign currency including US$ 1900, 540 gms gold bullion and more than 1.5 kg of gold jewellery," were found in this raid.
A further search into the matter led us to a report by The Hindu that detailed the investigation. It reported that so far, the ED, in its raids across 24 locations in India had found proceeds worth Rs 600 cr linked to this alleged scam "in the form of immovable properties of ₹350 crore and transactions of ₹250 crore." Out of the properties that were searched, a four-storey bungalow located at the New Friends Colony, Delhi, was registered as the office of a company called A. B. Exports and A.K. Infosystems Private Limited but was allegedly owned and controlled by Tejashwi Yadav. The ED also suspects that Yadav was using this property that he bought for Rs 4 lakhs against the market price of Rs 150 cr as his residence.
The ED has not officially released photos from these raids, but a tweet from March 11 mentions that investigation into the scam is underway.
While the ED suspects that several pieces of land were illegally acquired by Lalu Prasad Yadav's family members as part of this scam, there is no evidence that these photos were taken at his residence.
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