Photo: collage by DIEGO EFRAIN CADILLO TRUJILLO from Pixabay

This article was first published by Truthmeter.mk (North Macedonia), within the framework of Western Balkans Anti-Disinformation Project.

A new video circulating in the region falsely claims that Volodymyr Zelensky purchased a stake in a company operating a mine in South Africa, worth $ 1.6 billion. However, while the video footage is authentic, the audio was generated using artificial intelligence. The South African broadcaster confirmed they have not produced content on this topic and the company in question stated that there has been no change in management or ownership

Author: Matej Trojachanec

If you were to believe last year’s disinformation, Volodymyr Zelensky is alleged to have spent nearly half a billion US dollars of foreign funds intended for Ukraine’s defense. Now, the figure is rising by a staggering $1.6 billion, as new disinformation circulates, allegedly claiming that the Ukrainian president purchased a 51% stake in Northam Platinum Ltd., a company that operates a platinum mine in South Africa.

Just like in all previous cases, this news is not true. First of all, the video is edited in a combination of real footage and fake reports (pictures), while the audio was made with artificial intelligence to sound credible. In the video, you can see that the “news” was published by the South African public broadcaster SABC, but the media outlet has not published such news and publicly “distances” itself from fake news. Lastly, the alleged change of company owners was denied by the company “Northam Platinum Ltd” itself. This news was also fact-checked by colleagues from Faktograf (Croatia), Raskrinkavanje (Montenegro), Istinomer (Serbia), Greece Fact Check, Delfi, and 15min (Lithuania), Demagog (Czech Republic), Stop Fake (Ukraine), Maldita (Spain), Lead Stories (USA).

This disinformation has started to spread through the following video (archived here):

Firstly, as you can see, the logo of South African broadcaster SABC is clearly visible in the video. Searching their post, we found no news that mentions the company “Northam Platinum” in connection with the Ukrainian president.

There is no content on SABC News social media that would confirm the existence of this video or a supporting story that would confirm the information as genuine. Not only that, but SABC confirmed that it is fake news through their official X (Twitter) account:

Next, we reviewed information about Northam Platinum Ltd. The company produces platinum in the Republic of South Africa and has mining operations primarily at three mines—Zondereinde, Booysendal, and Eland.

Searching through the announcements and news from their official website, there were also no announcements related to the change of management or stake in the company (archived here). In addition, colleagues from Delfi contacted the company itself. They confirmed that this was fake news and that there was no change, nor had Zelensky or any of his associates bought a stake in the company:

All media articles, videos, and social media posts claiming that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has acquired a stake in Northam Platinum are false. Northam confirms that our stake remains unchanged, the company’s communications representative Sherilee Lakmidas wrote in a letter to Delfi.

 

Finally, as colleagues at Lead Stories write, they analyzed the video with two digital tools that check whether content is created by artificial intelligence, DeepFake-o-Meter and Hiya. According to the results they obtained, the audio from the video material is most likely not genuine.

In conclusion, even though the video inserts from the video clip are genuine, the audio is artificially generated. The South African broadcaster confirmed it has not produced any content on this topic. The company in question confirmed that there has been no change in management or ownership.

We sound like a broken record, since we have reviewed such news many times—see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. In any case, any piece of news claiming that Ukrainian President Zelensky has lavishly spent public money intended for the war against Russia is disinformation.