A video on social media shows a garage of black vehicles, which according to some users shows the arrest of Pope Francis. This is false: a longer version of the video has been circulating since September 2020 and appears to show a security brigade for Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo during a visit to Italy.
A repeat visible here contains a voice call asking what is going on in Italy and saying, “They have eclipses, the pope is being arrested with child pornography.”
Reuters had earlier dismissed the false allegation that Pope Francis had been arrested and that there was an ‘eclipse’ in the Vatican.
A longer version of this footage was posted on September 30, 2020 (here) by the Italian website Dagospia, saying it shows a garage for Pompeo on his way to meet Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte at the Chigi Palace in Rome.
The longer, better quality footage visible on Dagospia captures the motorway that enters Via Tritone from Via del Traforo in the Italian capital (see the sign “Absent” around time stamp 0:54 and Google street view here! 3m6! 1e1! 3m4 ! 1sMjVmRXaaW0GL92Cq-xoJcw! 2e0! 7i16384! 8i8192).
Reuters could not verify the source of the video, but footage from Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera shows another angle confirming it is the same highway (here).
The order of the vehicles is almost the same in both sections: the caravan starts with police motorcycles (five in the Corriere survey, two in the Dagospia), followed by two blue police cars, a black Volkswagen van, a white van, ‘ a black car, and then a group of black pickups (10 in Corriere’s footage, 9 in Dagospia’s footage), followed by more cars. A distinctive black Audi van with a roof box can be seen in both videos.
Here and here you can see photos of the car at Via Tritone.
As reported here by Reuters at the time, Pompeo was on a four-day visit to Italy and held talks with Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Conte. Reuters footage from the September 30th meeting of Pompeo and Conte can be seen here.
VERDICT
Untrue. The video shows a security highway for US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit to Rome in September 2020.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.