Fact Check: No, The U.S. Did Not Fly $45 Million In Cash To The Taliban On Dec. 8, 2025

A viral post claimed the United States sent $45 million in freshly printed cash to the Taliban on a chartered flight to Kabul on December 8, 2025. This is incorrect: the photograph circulated with the claim predates 2025 and documents United Nations cash shipments in 2023, not a U.S. government transfer.

What Was Claimed

An X account called National Uprising News posted on December 8, 2025 that "the United States provided forty-five million dollars ($45,000,000) in cash--freshly printed--to the Taliban" and that the money arrived on a chartered flight. The post included a photograph of large stacks of banknotes and tagged several public figures.

What The Evidence Shows

The image is from 2023. A reverse-image check traces the photo to a February 21, 2023 KabulNow report documenting cash deliveries to Afghanistan. That 2023 story reported a $40 million shipment deposited in a commercial bank in Kabul under the control of Da Afghanistan Bank, which is now run by the Taliban.

Who Actually Flies Cash Into Afghanistan

Independent reporting and official reviews show that the United Nations — not the U.S. government acting directly — has flown large sums of cash into Afghanistan for humanitarian operations since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. A ProPublica investigation published in March 2024 reported that the U.N. has flown more than $2.9 billion in cash into the country as part of relief operations.

Do U.S. Funds Ever Reach Taliban-Controlled Institutions?

Yes, but indirectly. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) and journalistic investigations found that some funds originating from U.S. contributions that were routed through U.N. humanitarian channels have ultimately ended up in Afghan banks controlled by the Taliban. SIGAR's report documents the flow of money through U.N. systems and local institutions but does not quantify a single, specific dollar amount of U.S. funds that definitively became Taliban property.

Why The Viral Claim Is False

The photo used to substantiate the December 8, 2025 claim was published in 2023 and relates to U.N. cash shipments. There is no verified evidence that the U.S. directly flew $45 million in freshly printed cash to the Taliban on December 8, 2025.

Bottom Line

The social-media post misattributes a 2023 photograph of U.N.-handled cash shipments to a U.S. government transfer in 2025. While official reviews and investigative reporting confirm that the U.N. flew billions in cash into Afghanistan and that some U.S.-sourced contributions routed through U.N. mechanisms have reached Taliban-controlled banks, the specific claim that the U.S. flew $45 million to the Taliban on Dec. 8, 2025 is unsubstantiated and false.

Sources

Original X post (archived); KabulNow (Feb. 21, 2023); ProPublica (Mar. 20, 2024); SIGAR final report.