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| Thursday, 31 July 2003 |
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by Asanga Warnakulasuriya A special team of officers of the Police Headquarters Crimes Unit yesterday uncovered a massive counterfeit dollar note printing racket and arrested a suspect in connection with the scam. The team also took into custody counterfeit bills 'worth' US$ 6000 from the possession of the suspect. The Director Crimes of the Police Headquarters SSP Mahinda Hetiarachi told the Daily News yesterday that investigations so far had revealed that the son of the alleged suspect is currently working at a printing press in Bahrain. The Police suspect that the son is allegedly behind this counterfeit greenbacks fraud. According to the SSP the suspect, a resident of Galle had been a gem merchant for several years. The suspect who had purchased gems from the miners had paid them in "dollars" instead of cash, SSP said. A miner who had come to sell his gem had received an advance (in dollars) from the gem merchant whereupon he had gone to a shop in Pettah to exchange the amount into rupees. The foreign exchange dealer, who regularly handles genuine dollar notes, had spotted that the dollars were fake and assaulted the miner. The gem miner, having lost his gem and money had given the tip-off to Police about the counterfeit dollar racket. The Police who later identified the miner had sent a special team in civvies with the miner to meet the suspect. Though the suspect declined to give the balance amount, he had ultimately given several forged dollar notes to the miner. The officers then had immediately taken the dud notes into custody and had searched the house. The Crimes Unit of the Police Headquarters investigating into this massive racket are on the lookout for the dollar notes circulated by the suspect. |
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