Fact Check: Viral video claiming treasure found during development woks in Mangalore is FALSE
The caption on the video claims “During excavation work in the *Central Market for redevelopment, gold coins* were discovered. Surprising how a serpent was found inside the sealed vessel alive after so many years! This was in Mangalore.”
A video showing excavation of ancient treasure is in circulation on social media with the claim that the fortune was found during the development works taken up in the central market of Mangalore, Karnataka. The video shows the gold coins and some gold jewellery in an urn being guarded by snakes.
The caption on the video claims "During excavation work in the *Central Market for redevelopment, gold coins* were discovered. Surprising how a serpent was found inside the sealed vessel alive after so many years! This was in Mangalore."
Fact check:
The claim that the treasure was found during development work in Mangalore, Karnataka is FALSE. The video belongs to a person named Hazine Avcisi.
When we observed the video carefully, we found a tab in facebook stating that the original video was posted by Hazine Avcisi. When the link was clicked, we were directed to the facebook page of Hazine Avcisi, who has more than 671,000 followers. The page displayed numerous videos on treasure hunting and excavations.
Not much information is available about Avcisi on the page. There is a YouTube link and also an email id mentioned. The about page of the YouTube channel states "Hello, if you like our treasure videos please subscribe.. i can showcase your best metal detectors. Hello, welcome to my channel. I am looking for treasures all over the world and I am delivering the treasures I found to the state. If you want to join me and my adventures, you can start by subscribing to my channel."
The viral video was published on his YouTube channel in July 2022 with the title 'Moment of finding treasure with scoop.'
The description of the video gives few phone numbers in Istanbul. Then it states "hello welcome to my channel i am looking for treasures all over the world and i am delivering the treasures i found to the state if you want to join me and my adventures you can start by subscribing to my channel I love these countries that follow me Indonesia United States of America Russia South Korea"
Then in Turkish language it states: "If you live in Turkey, I prefer you to read this and follow the rules Important Those who conduct research, excavation and sounding without permission will be punished in accordance with the provision of Article 74 of the Law No. 5879 on the Protection of Cultural and Natural Assets. According to this provision, anyone who digs or drills without permission in order to find cultural assets is punished with imprisonment from two to five years (Note: all the scenes exhibited are being fictionalized)."
The description of the video ends with the note in Georgian language 'Attention, it's all made up. It's not real. All videos are fictional. The goal is to entertain people.'
We also found the Instagram page of Hazine Avcisi, which also hosted the same videos as the YouTube channel.
Therefore, the claim that the video shows treasure excavated was in fact, not found during the development work in Mangalore, Karnataka. The claim is FALSE.