/ 18 February 1999

ANGOLA AWASH WITH FAKE BILLS

ANGOLA is awash with counterfeit money, including high-quality copies of $100 bills and one million denominations of the Angolan currency, the new kwanza, police said on Wednesday. The injection of fake money is an attempt at economic destabilisation of Angola perpetrated from “the outside,” police said in a communique. A ring of foreign businessmen and their Angolan associates has “already been identified,” a police source said, adding the government would “soon take steps.” In 1996, police cracked a ring of counterfeiters and deported hundreds of foreigners including Senegalese, Malians, Lebanese and nationals of the then-Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.