UNVERIFIED: Viral TikTok Claim That Money Stolen From Sri Lanka Has Caused Problems for Museveni and Ex-President Rajapaksa
Background
A TikTok video posted by the account @boyzkug displays a graphic with a Luganda caption that translates to: “Breaking news, money stolen in Sri Lanka has caused M7 and ex-president Rajapaksa problems.”
The video’s narrator goes further, claiming that Sri Lanka is looking for Museveni personally, that Museveni sought another presidential term specifically to rob Ugandans and pay back his debts to Sri Lanka, and that Sri Lanka’s demands are directed at Museveni personally, not at the Ugandan government.
The video also includes an image from the Renew Democracy Initiative’s (RDI) 2026 Heroes of Democracy Gala poster, which names Bobi Wine as one of its honourees alongside an advertisement for a cosmetic business at the bottom left corner of the screen.
Because the claim touches on a real and documented political controversy but makes a series of specific allegations without citing any verifiable source, we investigated what is actually verified and what is not.
Claim:
A TikTok video posted by @boyzkug makes the following claims:
- Money stolen from Sri Lanka has caused problems for President Museveni and former Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa.
- Sri Lanka is looking for Museveni personally over the stolen funds.
- Museveni sought another presidential term to rob Ugandans and use the money to pay back debts owed to Sri Lanka.
- Sri Lanka’s demands are directed at Museveni personally, not at the Ugandan government as a state.
Findings:
Our investigation shows this claim is UNVERIFIED. While there is a documented and publicly known connection between Uganda and the Rajapaksa corruption allegations, none of the specific claims made by the TikTok video and its narrator are supported by verified evidence from credible sources.
Debunk Info Verifier Tool Search Results
We used the Debunk Info Verifier tool to search for evidence related to the claim. The tool returned a number of results, including a Lanka E-News report on the Rajapaksa family corruption allegations, a BBC report on Gotabaya Rajapaksa fleeing Sri Lanka in July 2022, and a YouTube video containing nearly an hour of commentary claiming that the Sri Lankan government will be sending wanted letters to Uganda asking for Museveni.
However, when we conducted further keyword searches using terms such as “Museveni wanted in Sri Lanka”, no results from credible news sources were returned. The only results were from social media platforms, including TikTok and Facebook. This is a significant finding. If Sri Lanka had formally or informally pursued Museveni, it would have been reported by credible regional and international media outlets. The absence of any such reporting strongly indicates the claim is unsubstantiated.
The YouTube video surfaced by the Verifier tool contains extended commentary on the claim but cites no official source, no legal document, no diplomatic communication, and no verified investigative report to support the assertion that Sri Lanka is pursuing Museveni personally.
The YouTube Video Uses Doctored and unrelated footage.
A closer examination of the YouTube video surfaced by the Debunk Info Verifier reveals that it is built on deliberately manipulated footage. During the video, the narrator shows what appears to be Sri Lankan news coverage to support the claim that Museveni is wanted in Sri Lanka. However, a reverse image search of a screenshot from the footage traced it to an original clip uploaded on March 21, 2025, by a YouTube channel called NEWSWIRE.
The original video has nothing to do with Museveni. It shows Sri Lankan minister Sunil Handunnetti responding to political criticism, with the description reading: “If Deshabandu was called a thug during the Rajapaksa government, would you have survived? Minister Sunil Handunnetti hits back at the opposition, asserting that the current government has fostered an environment where public servants can speak without fear.”
A second reverse image search of another individual shown in the same footage identified him as MP Namal Rajapaksa. The original clip, uploaded on November 22, 2025, by a channel called VOICE TUBE, was titled in Sinhala, which translates via Google as “Namal will get involved with the government before the heat of the rally dies down!” I’ll bring the bag of gems.” In this clip, Namal Rajapaksa was discussing concerns about the health sector, an entirely unrelated topic.
The two clips were filmed months apart, feature different people discussing completely different subjects, were uploaded by different YouTube channels, and were never part of the same conversation.
The YouTube video‘s creator spliced them together to make it appear as though the two were engaged in a single debate and then fabricated a narration over the footage. At timestamps 7:31 to 8:00, the narrator falsely claims the two were arguing over 18 billion shillings that Museveni allegedly loaded onto his private jet and invents a quote attributed to Sri Lankan citizens, saying:
“President, we gave you votes, you told us that you were going to catch Museveni so he returns the wealth of our country. Our people are feeding poorly, our people are going to die of poverty, ever since we made you president in 2024, as you haven’t passed any formal writing.”
None of this narration is supported by the original footage. This is not a case of content being taken out of context; it is a case of footage being deliberately combined and a false narration constructed on top of it to manufacture a claim that does not exist in any of the original source material.
Notably, at no point during the video did the narrator mention the names of the two men shown in the footage, a clear indication that he intended to mislead his audience, since naming them would have made it easy to verify their identities and expose the manipulation. Additionally, the footage of the two men speaking was played in Sinhala, Sri Lanka’s native language, without any subtitles or translation, making it entirely incomprehensible to a Ugandan audience. Rather than being an oversight, this appears deliberate. Presenting foreign-language footage lends a false sense of authenticity while ensuring viewers cannot independently verify what is actually being said.
What Is True: The Rajapaksa Corruption Allegations and Uganda Connection Are Real
The claim does not emerge from nowhere. A sweeping international financial investigation is currently underway into allegations that the Rajapaksa political dynasty syphoned off more than $7 billion from Sri Lanka’s public coffers over a 15-year period spanning two separate Rajapaksa-led governments from 2005 to 2015 and again from 2019 to mid-2022.
Uganda entered this story in February 2021 when Sri Lanka’s Airline Pilots’ Guild flagged that SriLankan Airlines had flown three cargo flights to Entebbe, an unusual destination. The airline later clarified the cargo was Ugandan currency notes printed by British security printer De La Rue in Colombo, a routine commercial consignment unrelated to the Rajapaksa family. Despite this clarification, speculation about the flights persisted and was amplified on social media.
The broader Rajapaksa crisis came to a head in July 2022, when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled Sri Lanka on a military jet amid mass protests over the country’s worst economic crisis in decades, first to the Maldives and then to Singapore, before eventually resigning by email.
Sri Lanka’s newly appointed Asset Recovery Commission, backed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Interpol’s financial crimes unit, has begun tracing illicit flows through SWIFT transaction data, corporate registries, and cross-border fund transfers across 18 countries. However, none of the publicly available information about this investigation names Uganda as a confirmed destination of stolen funds, and no official document names Museveni as a person of interest.
The Specific Claims About Museveni Are Unsubstantiated
The TikTok narrator’s claim that Sri Lanka is “looking for Museveni personally” is not supported by any verified legal, diplomatic, or investigative record. No extradition request, Interpol notice, diplomatic demand, or official communication from Sri Lanka targeting Museveni personally has been reported by any credible media outlet.
The claim that Museveni sought another presidential term specifically to “rob Ugandans and pay back debts to Sri Lanka” is entirely speculative and unsourced. No verified evidence of any financial obligation between Museveni personally and Sri Lanka exists on record.
The claim that Sri Lanka’s demands are directed at Museveni personally rather than at Uganda as a state is equally unverified. Sri Lanka’s asset recovery efforts, as documented by credible sources, are focused on the Rajapaksa family and their known business networks, not on foreign heads of state.
The RDI Gala Poster Is Real, but Unrelated to the Claim
The video includes an image of the RDI 2026 Heroes of Democracy Gala poster, which names Bobi Wine as one of its honourees. This is a real and verifiable event. However, it has no connection whatsoever to the Sri Lanka money claim. Its inclusion in the video appears designed to lend the post a sense of credibility and current relevance rather than to provide supporting evidence for the claim being made.
The Cosmetic Advertisement Is a Red Flag
A commercial advertisement for a skincare business, “Get Glowing & Flawless Skin”, is visible at the bottom left corner of the video. The presence of a commercial advertisement embedded in what is presented as breaking news is a common indicator of low credibility or monetised disinformation content, where sensational political claims are used to drive engagement for unrelated commercial purposes.
Methodology
To verify this claim, we applied a structured fact-checking process combining the Debunk Info Verifier tool, keyword searches, credible media review, source verification, and visual analysis.
Debunk Info Verifier Tool
We used the Debunk Info Verifier tool to search for evidence related to the claims in the viral video. The tool returned results including a Lanka E-News report on the Rajapaksa corruption investigation, a BBC report on Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s 2022 flight from Sri Lanka, and a YouTube video making similar claims about Sri Lanka pursuing Museveni. None of these sources confirms the specific claims in the viral video.
Keyword Search Verification
We conducted targeted keyword searches in Google Search, including “Museveni wanted in Sri Lanka”, across credible news databases. No credible media outlet, regional or international, has reported that Sri Lanka is formally or informally pursuing Museveni. Results were limited exclusively to social media posts on TikTok and Facebook, which is a strong indicator that the claim has no verified basis.
Credible Media Review
For this fact-check, we reviewed reporting from Lanka E-News, the BBC, and Al Jazeera on the Rajapaksa corruption case and Sri Lanka’s asset recovery efforts to establish what is verified about the investigation and whether Uganda or Museveni features in any official findings.
YouTube Video Analysis
We analysed the YouTube video surfaced by the Debunk Info Verifier and found that the narrator used unrelated footage to construct a false narrative, deliberately misleading viewers into believing Sri Lanka was pursuing Museveni over stolen funds.
RDI Source Verification
We verified that the RDI 2026 Heroes of Democracy Gala poster shown in the video is real and that Bobi Wine is a named honouree but confirmed it has no connection to the Sri Lanka money claim.
Visual and Credibility Analysis
We noted the presence of a commercial cosmetic advertisement embedded in the video, which is a recognised indicator of content designed to monetise political disinformation through engagement rather than inform.
Verdict: Unverified
The claim that money stolen from Sri Lanka has caused problems for Museveni and ex-president Rajapaksa is UNVERIFIED. While the Rajapaksa family corruption scandal is real and documented, and while Uganda has featured in associated speculation, no verified evidence confirms that stolen Sri Lankan funds are held in Uganda, that Sri Lanka is pursuing Museveni personally, or that Museveni sought re-election to repay Sri Lankan debts. Keyword searches for “Museveni wanted in Sri Lanka” returned no credible media results, only social media posts. Always verify extraordinary claims against official and credible sources before sharing.
This fact-check was produced by Masai Joel with support from The Debunk Media Initiative and BBC Media Action.