Police have recently uncovered one of the biggest counterfeit money making and trafficking cases in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, involving fake banknotes with a total face value of more than 300 million yuan (US$ 37.09 million).
They have also arrested a total of 11 suspects and confiscated equipment, sources with the local police said yesterday.
This was a high-tech operation, according to Xiao Jianhua, spokesman for the Huizhou Bureau of Public Security, in an interview with China Daily yesterday.
The suspects have been detained for interrogation, Xiao said.
On May 8, police officers in the city of Huizhou in the eastern part of Guangdong began investigating the case after receiving a report from the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Public Security that an alleged counterfeiting ring was operating in the city.
Investigations were carried out around Nankeng Village in Huiyang District, believed to have been the production center.
After a two-week investigation, police arrested eight suspects on May 24 when they were allegedly trafficking fake money out of the city. On the same day, police confiscated fake banknotes all with the face value of 100 yuan, totaling 62 million yuan (US$7.6 million), as well as equipment for making the banknotes. Three more suspects were later arrested by Huizhou police in Changde, Hunan Province.
Further investigation allegedly showed that the ring used another site to produce counterfeit money in Fangcun District of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province.
Guangzhou police arrested another two suspects in the middle of June, after receiving a tip-off from Huizhou police, and confiscated fake banknotes with a face value of more than 60 million yuan (US$7.4 million).
Police said the fake banknotes were sold at a low price, each 100-yuan note selling at 2 yuan (25 US cents) in the Pearl River Delta areas.
In 2004, over half of the counterfeit money seized by police nationwide was produced in Guangdong, according to official statistics.
(China Daily September 23, 2005)
