Counterfeit blue notes continue to circulate
It’s not a new story, but if you’ve ever been swindled by a bogus blue note, you’ll agree it’s an important one. Yes, counterfeit currency is still around and here’s a reminder to be on the lookout.
Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
These two one-hundred dollar bills look very similar, but a closer inspection of the notes reveal that one is not real money. The counterfeit was passed on to a salesman from Bowen and Bowen Limited on Monday in Ladyville.
Nicholas Pollard Jr. Marketing Manager, Bowen/Bowen Limited
“One route was doing the Ladyville area yesterday and one of several customers gave him that hundred dollar note.”
The company’s marketing manager Nicholas Pollard Junior, says they have been unable to determined who gave their employee the bogus note, but that they have launched their own investigation.
Nicholas Pollard, Jr.
“There is very little we can do except continue to use the special pens to check the hundred dollar notes and to urge the salesmen to do a little better check of the hundred dollar notes when they receive it. For example, the real hundred dollar note has the jaguar in the right side of the note where the queen’s head is with the wording one hundred. This counterfeit doesn’t have it, but you have to look closely to see it.”
The counterfeit is the not the first that the company has received, but it has been a month since anything has been reported.
Nicholas Pollard, Jr.
“We haven’t received any over the last four weeks. Just before that, the Chamber of Commerce did a story on counterfeit notes and it seemed that it just died down for a while, but we had received hundred dollar notes up in the north in Corozal, in San Pedro, Belize District, and Stann Creek. We had also received other notes like fifty dollar notes and twenty dollar notes in various districts, but it just died own.”
According to the Central Bank of Belize they publish quarterly advertisements to raise awareness, but they are not aware of this latest case and they have not noticed any real increase in reported incidents.
Nicholas Pollard, Jr.
“My advice to the other business places is to make some noise about it because when we do that, we keep the suppliers underground, they won’t be circulating as many notes as they normally would.”
Pollard says they stand ready to work with law enforcement officers, the Central Bank, and the Belize Chamber of Commerce to address the issue because it is very likely that we have not seen the last of the phoney blue notes.
