Asia-Pacific News

Two suspected counterfeiters arrested in Hong Kong

Jul 7, 2011, 5:12 GMT

Hong Kong - Hong Kong police have arrested two accused members of a counterfeit money-making syndicate operating for about six months, a news report said Thursday.

The arrests came as police said they seized counterfeit 100-Hong Kong-dollar (12.80-US-dollar) bank notes worth a total of 56,800 Hong Kong dollars from January to May, the South China Morning Post said.

The amount was double the 273 counterfeit 100-Hong Kong-dollar notes discovered by police in the first five months of last year. In the whole of 2010, 625 fraudulent notes were seized.

Police arrested a 36-year-old man Tuesday after he bought vegetables from a market stall using a counterfeit note. Four more fake notes were found on him.

They later raided a home allegedly used as a counterfeit-money factory and arrested a 32-year-old man. Officers also seized 36 finished bills, more than 2,000 unfinished banknotes and two inkjet printers.

The two men were still being held Thursday, the report said.

All the bogus banknotes had been copied from two genuine 100-Hong Kong-dollar notes that had been scanned into a computer, police said.

'The colour fades when you rub the notes, and the fakes contain no security features,' such as watermarks or metal threads, Superintendent Ravy Fong Kwok-wah was quoted as saying.

The counterfeiters passed their bills mainly to elderly stallholders in meat, vegetable or fish shops at busy times so they had no time to look closely at the bills, Fong said.