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?

The trick is that there are only a few demonstration notes that are actual banknotes. These notes have been dyed using an iodine solution. The special ‘chemical’ to wash the black ink off the note is simply a Vitamin C liquid. The hundreds or thousands of other notes are black construction paper (cardstock paper) or plain paper that has been painted black.

In recent years the scammers have created a ‘machine’ that will wash the notes for you. The black note goes into one end of the machine, lots of buttons on the front will light up different colours, then magically the genuine note appears out of the other side of the machine. It looks like a 1960’s low-budget sci-fi computer!

Don’t fall victim to this scam.

www.KerrencyLtd.com