Four arrested in Hong Kong as police raid flat and seize more than 1,100 fake banknotes after spate of cases involving shops receiving counterfeit bills

2019-4-22

Commercial Crime Bureau officers swoop on Aberdeen flat and arrest suspected ringleader, 32

Two other men and a woman, aged 24 to 43, suspected to have been recruited to spend counterfeit cash in West Kowloon shops

Four people including the supposed ringleader have been arrested in a police crackdown on a fake banknote syndicate in Hong Kong, with officers seizing more than HK$220,000 (US$28,200) in bogus bills.

Commercial Crime Bureau officers swooped on an Aberdeen flat on Sunday morning after 34 incidents of shops in Sham Shui Po and other West Kowloon areas receiving counterfeit HK$500 and HK$100 bills from the HSBC 2010 series of banknotes since the middle of last month.

In the raid, officers arrested a 32-year-old man who was believed to be the mastermind.

Police found 269 counterfeit HK$500 notes and 846 HK$100 bills in the rented flat on Wu Pak Street, which they suspected was used as a printing house.

They also found printing gear at the site, which they said was relatively well-equipped compared with others uncovered in the past five years and included hot stamping machines and cutting tools.

Two other men and a woman, aged 24 to 43, were later caught in Tsing Yi, Sau Mau Ping and Tai Po.

Five HK$500 notes were seized at the home of one of the other men. The total face value of the 1,120 fake notes was HK$221,600.

There were also stamps for making HK$1,000 bills in the printing house but police found no evidence of these notes being produced.

Police said they suspected the mastermind recruited the others to spend some of the fake cash in Sham Shui Po. Investigators believed the syndicate had been in operation for a month and only a small amount of its fake notes were in circulation.

Acting Chief Inspector John Tse Ka-lun said on Monday: "The [HK$500] fake bills can be detected without tools. They were printed with domestic laser printers and are not of high quality."

The suspects, some with triad backgrounds, were detained for questioning. Further arrests were possible.

Police collected 287 fake bills in the first three months of this year. In 2018, 2,966 bogus banknotes were seized, with 893 found in the first three months.

Source: SCMP