Police have conducted raids on a money-counterfeiting ring in New Taipei City and detained six people who allegedly produced counterfeit banknotes with face values totaling NT$1.2 billion (US$40.4 million).
Police seized the bills, mostly with face values of NT$1,000, at the ring’s printing facility and other locations in the city and elsewhere.
Large amounts of counterfeit US dollar and yen banknotes were also found, Yunlin County Prosecutor Shih Chia-yong (施家榮) said.
Photo: CNA
Shih said the ring was headed by a man surnamed Liao (廖), who runs a store that sells props for magic tricks in the city.
Police arrested the 38-year-old ringleader, a print shop owner surnamed Lee (李), 58, and a graphic designer surnamed Hung (洪), 36, as well as people surnamed Chang (張), Huang (黃) and Chu (朱), Shih said.
Hung was originally involved in the production of toy money, which enabled him to produce close replicas of NT$1,000 bills for fraudulent purposes, Shih said.
The raids were coordinated by prosecutors in Yunlin, and involved police units based in New Taipei City and elsewhere, as well as judicial investigators, Shih said.
The prosecutors’ efforts enabled law enforcement officers to simultaneously raid 18 locations, including in New Taipei City, Taipei, Yunlin and Kaohsiung, Shih said.
Investigators questioned 20 people who were allegedly involved in the ring, Shih said.
Prosecutors said the six suspects might be charged with contravening the Penal Act of Offenses Against National Currency (妨害國幣懲治條例) and Article 195 of the Criminal Code.
Prosecutors quoted Liao as saying that he came up with the idea to counterfeit money after hearing about scammers using toy money for transactions at local markets in December last year.
Shih said Liao then hired Hung and they began working on improving the quality of the toy money offered at Liao’s shop, including changing “Toy Bank” to “Central Bank” as the “issuer” of the bills.
Prosecutors got a tipoff from a taxi driver in Yunlin, who helped them identify a person who paid for a ride with a counterfeit NT$1,000 bill, Shih said, adding that it enabled them to investigate the fake bill’s provenance.
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