Hong Kong police seize thousands of ‘training banknotes’ as number of fake bills confiscated more than doubles in 2019

HK$6.43 million in 8,009 fake notes seized, compared with 2,966 with a face value of HK$1.05 million in 2018, figures show

Training notes are used by bank staff in mainland China to practise counting, police say

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The fake notes had Chinese characters written on them to show they were for training purposes. Photo: Facebook

Published: 7:38pm, 6 Mar 2020Updated: 7:41pm, 6 Mar 2020

Police seized thousands of bogus HK$1,000 notes with the Chinese characters “practice coupon” printed on them in 2019, resulting in a 170 per cent year-on-year rise in the number of counterfeit bills confiscated in Hong Kong, new figures show.

In all, HK$6.43 million in 8,009 fake notes was seized last year, compared with 2,966 with a face value of HK$1.05 million in 2018, according to the latest statistics.

Last year’s haul included 5,785 fake HK$1,000 bills, up from 521 the previous year. The seizure of bogus HK$500 notes rose 40 per cent to 1,082. There were 1,044 counterfeit HK$100 bills, 24 fake HK$50 notes and 44 bogus HK$20 bills last year.

“The increase is due to the seizure of 5,006 training notes [in HK$1,000 denomination] in a deception case in November 2019,” a police spokesman said.

In the case, scammers ran a bogus money changer and the fake bills were shown in front of their targets to give the impression the shop was capable of handling large transactions. Police arrested two people for possessing counterfeit notes and obtaining property by deception.

The training notes look genuine aside from the three Chinese characters printed on them.