Justin Pearce
THERE’S almost R1 000 in banknotes taped to the window of the manager’s office at Hillbrow’s Fontana bakery. Well, it looks like a thousand bucks’ worth. In fact, all of the notes are fakes, and all have been handed over the counter since January this year.
“It’s rife around here,” says manager Basil du Pree. “It’s always been there — but not as frequent as
Walk into almost any shop in Hillbrow, and the staff will tell you a similar story. Forged notes are becoming more and more common, helped by colour photocopiers which have improved to a point where they can produce near-perfect colour matches. Personal computer-based scanners and colour printers are another useful tool for forgers.
“The techniques are quite astounding compared to a few years ago,” says Daan Naude, head of the Reserve Bank’s notes and coins division.
The appearance over the past few years of a new series of South African banknotes has made it easier for forgers to pass off their produce as real before most people know what the genuine notes look like. Shopkeepers report that fake R100 notes were circulating within a month of the real ones appearing.
Fake rands appear in wallets all over the country, but the evidence points to Hillbrow with its well-developed criminal underworld as being the epicentre of the racket. The forgers themselves are naturally careful about how they dispose of their cash, and usually get stooges to spend the counterfeits and bring back the
A fast-food restaurant worker said many of the fake notes she receives come from street children who have been given the money by someone else and told to buy food. “It’s rare that you find a smart guy coming in here with fake money.”
Shopkeepers say that many of the notes they receive are paid by drug dealers or prostitutes: people in illegal professions operate under pressure which makes it difficult for them to check every note they receive. Street traders also find it impractical to check every note they receive.
But workers who receive their wages in cash are equally at risk.
“A customer will say, ‘They paid me in this money,’ ” says Peter Wallace, security guard at a Hillbrow bar. “And sometimes they may be telling the truth. If you’re dealing in forged money you won’t just have one note, so we search them in the office.”
Retailers are getting wise to the problem, training their staff to spot fakes. Some businesses have installed ultraviolet lights to check that the notes offered by customers have the security printing which is invisible in normal light. If someone has slipped you a fake note, it’s unlikely that you’ll get away with spending it. Most shop assistants and bank clerks will challenge the customer who brings in the fake note, and only call the police if the customer objects.
“Often the person says ‘I know who gave it to me’ and goes off to find the person,” said Debbie Creichton, manager of the Hillbrow branch of United Bank. “But then they don’t come back.”
In terms of the South African Reserve Bank Act, it is illegal to accept or to give a forged note if you do so knowingly — in other words, you can’t be charged if you hand over a dud without knowing what it is. So it is rare for charges to be brought against someone who hands over a fake note in a shop. Police liaison officer Colonel Dave Bruce said most of the arrests made in connection with forgeries were the result of raids on premises where counterfeits are made or stored.
It’s not only fake rands that appear in South Africa. David Walker, director of Rennie’s Foreign Exchange, reports that staff at the Hillbrow bureau de change are often confronted with fake foreign notes, the most common being the American $100 and the British Stg 50 note. Walker believes these have been brought in from other African countries — particularly Nigeria, which he describes as “the counterfeiting capital of the world”. All his company’s staff are trained to recognise forgeries. Traders also recall seeing forged Zimbabwe dollars and Botswana pula on the streets.
The current series of South African banknotes was designed with sophisticated security features, but this hasn’t discouraged the forgers. Naude believes the problem is that people don’t bother to check their notes for authenticity.
In the least successful forgeries, the colour is obviously wrong: the blue of the R100 notes is usually too bright, and the red of the R50 and the orange of the R200 notes too dull. Real bank-notes use intaglio printing, in which the ink is raised above the paper making the surface of the note rough to the touch. A photocopied note feels completely smooth.
One thing that few forgers get quite right is the metal strip running across the note, which normally appears as a broken line but which becomes a solid line when the note is held up to the light.
But the signs are that the forgers are getting better at their jobs: one bank manager reported that a fake R200 note had fooled even a bank cashier.
Naude said the Reserve Bank is considering introducing further security features on the high-value notes, but that these would involve inks that are only visible under ultraviolet light — and therefore useless to the person who is slipped a dubious note in change or in a pay packet.