Does a photo of stacks of banknotes sitting in some room or basement show USAID money found in the house of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy? No, that's not true: The photo has been online since 2007 and shows money discovered in a drug bust in Mexico. The picture has been used in jokes and memes for many years.
The joke appeared (among other places) in a post on X (archived here) published on February 7, 2025, with a caption that read:
USAID found at Zelensky's house
This is what the post looked like at the time:
(Source: screenshot of x.com taken by Lead Stories on February 8, 2025 at 11:49:13 UTC)
The photo has been online since at least 2007 when it appeared in an AP story published by SeattlePI (archived here) titled "Mexican suppliers filling void left by U.S. meth labs" . The photo was captioned:
In March, U.S drug agents working with Mexican police discovered $206 million -- profits of methamphetamine sold in the United States -- stuffed inside walls, suitcases and closets in one of Mexico City's wealthiest neighborhoods. It was described as the largest drug cash seizure ever.
MEXICO ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE/AP
(Source: screenshot of seattlepi.com taken by Lead Stories on February 8, 2025 at 11:56:29 UTC)
Lead Stories also found many copies of the image dating back to at least 2008 by performing a reverse image search on TinEye (archived here).
The account (archived here) that posted the joke identifies itself as "parody and sarcasm" in its bio:
Not associated with the Federal Reserve. Financial Parody and sarcasm. Not investment advice.
(Source: screenshot of @alifarhat bio on X taken by Lead Stories on February 8, 2025 at 12:03:51 UTC)
