Hong Kong police seize counterfeit banknotes with face value of HK$2.55 million, advise public to be on alert
- Fake notes are ‘poorly made and easy to spot’, with HK$1,000 ones most common counterfeits seized
- Cryptocurrency exchange victims report big losses, but crooks also target convenience stores and cabbies
Hong Kong police have warned the public to watch out for counterfeit banknotes, after a sharp rise in fake currency changing hands in the city from January to April this year.
Police seized 3,396 fake notes of various denominations with a face value of HK$2.55 million (US$326,130) over the four months, up from 553 bills totalling HK$166,220 over the same period last year.
Three cases of deception involving cryptocurrency transactions accounted for a big portion of this year’s counterfeits, with police seizing 1,693 “training notes” and 347 low-quality fake notes.
Three people were arrested in connection with those cases. One was arrested on suspicion of passing counterfeit notes as genuine while the other two were arrested for obtaining property by deception.
Training notes are not genuine currency, have no security features and are said to be used mainly to train bank staff. The HK$1,000 bills look like the real thing except for three Chinese characters that say “practice coupon”.
The 1,693 training notes seized pushed this year’s total of forged HK$1,000 notes to 2,053.