Counterfeiters use new method to deceive victims

Kadek Sridanti didn’t suspect anything when in late December two men came to her stall in Tibubeneng village, Badung, and bought a pack of cigarettes. They paid with a
Rp 50,000 bill (US$5.50) that she admits looked genuine. That was until she closely inspected the note.

“I was almost fooled, the billresembled the real thing,” she told police.

Acting on Sridanti’s report, North Kuta Police sent a team of plainclothes officers to the area and arrested the two men, Agus Salim and Iman Safei, as they were about to leave the village. The men were carrying several counterfeit Rp 50,000 notes.

Police later raided their rented room in Denpasar, where they found hundreds of genuine and counterfeit Rp 50,000 bills worth Rp 16.3 million and various tools the suspects used to produce the counterfeit money.

Badung Police chief Sr. Comr. Dwi Suseno said the counterfeit money distributed and produced by the two men were of a very high quality.

“They used parts of genuine bills to produce the counterfeit notes, making the counterfeit money very difficult to identify,” he said Thursday.

Salim and Safei claimed their fake notes could fool the UV lamps used at supermarkets to detect counterfeit bills.

“We shopped at several supermarkets and used the fake money to buy things. The UV lamps failed to show the money was counterfeit,” Salim said.

— JP/Ni Komang Erviani