Thursday, July 07, 2011

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=11&art_id=112861&sid=32959486&con_type=1&d_str=20110707&fc=4

Police are on the hunt for more members of a "family run" gang alleged to have widely used homemade HK$100 notes in wet markets over the past six months.

Law enforcers also renewed warnings to vendors and the public to be vigilant against forged notes following the arrest of two men and the seizure of 41 counterfeit HK$100 notes - bearing two sets of identical serial numbers - in North Point and Sham Shui Po on Tuesday.

Semi-finished HK$100 notes, with a face value of more than HK$200,000, were also found in a Sham Shui Po flat where the two suspects live.

The pair, aged 32 and 36, were arrested for passing out counterfeit notes and counterfeiting notes. The 36-year- old man has been charged and will appear in Eastern Magistrates' Courts today. The other man was bailed and ordered to report back to police next month.

Commercial Crime Bureau superintendent Fong Kwok-wah believes the gang was active during the past six months.

He suspects most of the 568 fake HK$100 bills seized in the first five months may have been supplied by the pair as most of the notes bore either the serial number FV398622 or MH817158 - the same as those found in the flat.

Fong described it as a "family run" operation as the gang printed the dodgy notes one by one with a printer suitable for home use, and used the notes mainly to buy food for themselves. However, the two men are not related.

Fong believes they are core members of a gang and the others are still at large.

"We believe that they chose to print HK$100 fake notes because of a notion that in the eyes of the public, as these notes do not have a very large face value, people would be less vigilant and accept them," Fong said.

"The syndicate targeted busy outlets, especially those in wet markets in various districts, when using the counterfeit banknotes during busy hours. Only one [fake note] was used each time, or two at the maximum."

Acting on a tip-off, police arrested the 36-year-old man after seeing him use a suspected fake HK$100 note at a vegetable stall in the Java Road wet market in North Point.

He was found carrying four more suspected counterfeit notes.

Officers then raided the Sham Shui Po flat and seized 36 forged and a number of semi-finished fake notes as well as an ink-jet printer, a scanner, two notebook computers, scissors, cutters and two real banknotes.

The other suspect was arrested in the flat.

Fong said police are probing if the gang supplied fake notes to others.

Bureau chief inspector Cheng Ka- wai said the fake bills seized are of low quality and easy to recognize.

He said real HK$100 notes have denomination numerals in optical variable ink. The numerals will change color when the notes are flipped back and forth. But numerals on the fake bills will not switch color. Also, while the real bills contain holographic windowed threads, the dodgy ones do not.

Fong said 568 fake HK$100 banknotes were seized in the first five months, double that of 273 notes in the same period last year.

Offenders who manufacture, possess, control or pass a counterfeit note may be liable to a jail term of 14 years.