The bogus bills, passed on to a news hawker, are poor quality
HSBC yesterday disclosed that it had discovered counterfeits of its newly designed $100 banknote.
The admission came after a newspaper stall owner found two bogus notes of the new $100 design on Monday and reported them to the police.
It is understood there have been other cases of police seizing counterfeit new banknotes but these have not been publicised. It was not clear last night how many of the fake notes have been seized so far.
The news hawker, 45, told officers that he was given the fake notes by his customers. The new $100 banknotes - issued along with $500 notes in a new series in December - have seven new security features. The fake bank banknotes are believed to be of poor quality, easily identifiable and probably from the same source.
The cases are now being investigated by detectives from the Commercial Crime Bureau's Counterfeit and Forgery Division.
An HSBC spokeswoman admitted it had recently found counterfeit $100 banknotes but in a small quantity. She declined to say exactly how many. 'We have handed over all the bogus notes to the Commercial Crime Bureau for investigation,' she said.