If you think you're getting a real deal at a street vendor or a farm market, watch closely or you may get faked out.
Once the realm primarily of 100 yuan notes, police say the risk of being handed bogus notes is spreading to smaller bills like 50s and 20s, bills you are less likely to check for authenticity.
In fact, the number of counterfeit smaller-denomination bills seized by police so far this year has increased sixfold since 2005, Zhang Tao, deputy director of the criminal investigation bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, told a press conference Wednesday. Last month a 60-year-old woman surnamed Hua who runs a small cigarette stall in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, got stuck with five 100-yuan fake notes. Hua said she sold three cartons of cigarettes to two young men and got 500 yuan in return. The men quickly left the stall on motorbikes, leaving her almost no time to tell whether the money was real or not.
"Later I found all of the notes had the same serial number," the elderly woman said. "I almost fainted."
Police said yesterday that asking for change or stealthily swapping bills at small stalls is the most common way to use fake notes.
If you're in a city suburb in southern Guangdong Province, the risk is even higher.
Zhang said more than half of the fakes are produced in and seized in Guangdong, a province that has long been a hotbed of counterfeit money. A small amount of fakes from Taiwan have been found as well. Henan and Hunan provinces are major distributing areas.
The biggest case cracked so far was in Huizhou in Guangdong at the end of February, involving 85 million yuan (US$12.4 million) and 13 suspects. Police said the suspects started printing fake notes last October, and the group was well-organized with staff specialized in technology, equipment purchasing and sales.
To constrain the spread of fake money, the ministry launched a 10-month crackdown in January this year. Just before the crackdown, new fake 100-yuan notes, most starting with serial numbers "HD90" and "HB90", were found in more than 10 provinces and cities, causing public concern.
So far during the crackdown, police across the country have seized 684 million yuan in fake notes in 1,800 cases, up 70 percent and 50 percent respectively over the figures for all of last year, according to the ministry.
More than 3,600 suspects have been arrested for making and selling counterfeit notes, including a number of fugitives who had been at large for more than a decade, figures released Wednesday show.
In July, Beijing police also destroyed a counterfeiting group and seized more than 6.6 million yuan in fake notes, the biggest counterfeiting case in the capital in the past 60 years.
"Because of the crackdown, the amount of fake money in circulation is now decreasing," Zhang said.
Local police said these fakes are almost indistinguishable from real money. But Xu Fang, a senior official from the People's Bank of China, told the press conference yesterday that as long as people pay attention and watch carefully, fake notes can be discovered by the naked eye.
"So far, we haven't found any highly authentic fake notes," she said.
Zhang said mainland police are also sharing more information with counterparts in neighboring regions, such as Vietnam.
Border trade between China and Vietnam is settled mainly in Chinese yuan. Vietnamese police have been encouraged to offer tips if they find any fake Chinese currency.
(China Daily September 10, 2009)
