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Claim: A Facebook page, The Truth Media, shared a video showing a military woman disclosing attempts to compromise Ibrahim Traore’s safety for a €500,000 bribe.
Verdict: FALSE. The video showing the interview was generated using artificial intelligence. There is also no evidence to prove the supposed female presidential attache’s existence.
Full Text
Since Captain Ibrahim Traoré seized power in a 2022 coup, he has positioned himself as a pan-Africanist leader and distanced Burkina Faso from Western influence. During this period, he severed ties with France in favour of closer relations with Russia.
Burkina Faso also ceased being a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) after Mr. Traoré withdrew the country on January 29, 2025.
Despite his popularity among segments of Africa’s youth, humanitarian crises increased under his regime, with millions displaced and the civic space shrinking under junta rule. In March 2025 alone, the Human Rights Watch reported that the military government had killed over 100 civilians.
There have also been repeated allegations of coup plots targeting Traoré’s government. In April 2025, authorities announced they had foiled a major attempt to overthrow the junta. The security minister, Mahamadou Sana, claimed some current and former military personnel collaborated with opposition from neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire.
While the dust is yet to settle, a Facebook page, The Truth Media, shared a 67-second reel showing a military woman granting a television interview. The page claimed the official, an unaligned presidential attache to Mr Traore, publicly exposed how conspirators attempted to bribe her to assassinate Traore for €500,000 on May 28, 2025.
As of June 4, 2025, the reel has garnered over 4,300 reactions, 271 comments, and 1,300 reshares since its release on June 1, 2025.
Franklyn Charles applauded the woman in the comment section, “I am proud of you, sister. You are blessed. You proved yourself to be righteous and loyal to your country, blessed are you.”
Another user, Claire Alleyne, wrote, “So this is the 20th time they tried to kill him?”
Bis Bil said, “I love how they’re playing along with them to get that money and using it for development and agriculture.”
The post’s implication on the country’s political stability prompted DUBAWA to fact-check the claim.
Verification
The first red flag we observed was the inability to see the speakers’ faces. We also observed that the military officer’s image, overlaid on the video, bore similar traits to those of AI-generated images.
We also manually identified distortions in some texts displayed on the televisions seen in the video. The officer’s complexion indicated a possibility of digital manipulation.
We used IsItAI to analyse the image, which revealed a 74% probability score, indicating that it is most likely generated with artificial intelligence.
The tool said, “This AI-generated image portrays a woman in a military uniform, possibly a portrait. She is wearing a red beret and appears to be positioned in an office setting. Our analysis indicates that this image is somewhat likely to have been generated by AI. No NSFW content detected”.
DUBAWA also analysed the video using Deepware Scanner, an open-sourced tool for deepfake detection. Two models, Seferbekov and Ensemble, detected a 98% and 94% deepfake, respectively.
We also used Attestiv Video, an AI-powered deepfake detection tool, to verify the video’s authenticity. The analysis revealed a consistent green line, indicating that it was entirely AI-generated.
Following the watermark on the video, DUBAWA traced the video’s source to Vantix TV, a faceless YouTube channel that frequently shares anti-democratic narratives in Burkina Faso.
Despite using advanced keyword searches, we found no credible media organisation that reported the bribery development as claimed. We also conducted keyword searches to see if Mr Traore has a female military officer attached to him, but we found no evidence.
Conclusion
The video analysis revealed that the supposed interview was a deepfake generated using artificial intelligence. Therefore, the information is false.
