Counterfeit Corner

Many people fall victim to the ‘Black Money’ scam, which is basically a get rich quick scheme. Usually there are no counterfeit banknotes involved, but I thought this would be an interesting topic to discuss.

Here’s how it works:

A con artist will approach a victim with a suitcase full of banknotes, neatly strapped in packs of 100, that are covered in black ink with a story that the money has been smuggled into the country and coloured black to avoid detection. They then indicate there are special chemicals that will remove all the black ink from the banknotes, but the trickster does not have time to do this.

The fraudster will then do an elaborate demonstration to show how the ink comes off using a roller pad and magically the black note turns into a genuine clean banknote, but the chemical must be left on the notes for 24 hours to soak. The con artist tells them 24 hours in order to disappear before they figure out that it doesn’t work. So, they offer to sell the victim all the banknotes and the chemicals to remove the ink for a fraction of the value of the unwashed banknotes. Sounds great, right?