At a time when there is a lot of talk about topics such as printing money, a series of posts circulated in social media showed that currency notes bearing the signature and the image of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has been created.
Social Media Posts
In these posts which are widely shared on social media, show that a currency note bearing the image of President Anura Kumara has been printed. It was also shown that the signature of him was also used in the currency notes.
We decided to investigate on this.
Fact Check
First, we checked whether the mainstream media has reported that a currency note bearing Anura Kumara’s image has been issued. But they haven’t reported such a news.
We directed the image shared on social media to a reverse image search, where a 5000 rupee note with the batch number of the same note was found on the internet on the E- Bay website. Archived.
Below is a comparison between that five thousand rupee note and the fake edited five thousand rupee note that is being shared on social media.
It can be seen here that the image of the bird on the right-hand note has been removed and the image of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has been used instead.
The original note was issued in 2015. It also has the signature of Ravi Karunanayake who was the finance minister at that time.
Also, both the original and modified notes bear the signature of Mr. Arjun Mahendran, who served as the Governor of the Central Bank in 2015.
Also, the release date of the circulated currency notes was changed into 2024.9.21 which was the date of the presidential election. However, Anura Kumara Dissanayake gave the oath as the president on 23rd of September.
Minister Vijitha Herath, who made a statement regarding the printing of currency notes. He stated that currency notes bearing the signature and the image of the current President and the finance minister Anura Kumara Dissanayake have not been issued so far.
Also, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, while presenting an explanation about the problems among the public regarding the printing of money, has said that there has been no printing of currency notes recently. They point out that the central bank providing liquidity through the foreign exchange market activities is a normal central bank activity, and this kind of foreign market activities are carried out to maintain price stability through the management of the interest rate, and it cannot be recorded as a mere currency printing. You can refer the announcement here. ENG | SIN
We have published an article below explaining the process related to providing liquidity through Open Market Operations.
Did the central bank print around 100 billion rupees?
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Conclusion
Our inquiries confirm that the social media posts that state that a 5000 rupee note with the signature of Finance Minister President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his picture has been issued are false. It is an edited currency note.
Title:A 5000 rupee note with President Anura’s image circulating through social media?
Written By: Fact Crescendo TeamResult: Altered
