SHANGHAI – Fake 100 Yuan bank notes with serial numbers beginning with HD90 have circulated to over 20 cities in mainland China. The notes are almost exact replicas and hard to detect. Many are not even being identified by banks.

Fake bills first reported in Yangjiang, Guangdong Province

In January 2008, China Agricultural Bank found three fake 100 Yuan notes with serial numbers beginning with HD90 in Yangjiang, Guangdong. This was the first time the HD90 notes came out in the market. A citizen in Yangjiang went to the bank’s counter to deposit some money. Oddly enough, the Bank Note Identifier didn’t recognize the three fake notes. They were discovered by the teller when she recounted the notes by hand. The staff of the China Agricultural Bank checked the three notes carefully and found that 3/4 of the notes were real and 1/4 was fake; then the two parts were connected. The notes had fake watermarks and national emblem. At that time, other banks including Bank of China and the Commerial Bank had received reports of any similar notes.  However they may have been received, but simply weren’t detected by the bank note counter.

Changing fake HD90 notes in the streets of Guangzhou

In March 2008, merchants in several pedestrian commercial streets refused to accept 100 Yuan notes in Guangzhou. They were told that many people tried using the fake HD90 notes with the merchants, who couldn’t identify them as fake. A merchant on one of the pedestrian commercial streets claimed that he had been cheated twice. “The customer gave me a hundred RMB note, which was real. Then he said he remembered he had some small change, so he took back the hundred note. He searched in his pocket for a while, then told me he couldn’t find the small change. So he gave me back another hundred, but it was fake! He took the first a hundred back and then gave me another one right away, so I didn’t pay any attention to it. I have been cheated twice like that!” Police say the scam has occurred several times. Many Guangzhou netizens have published this account online to warn more people.

100 Yuan notes for 15 Yuan

On January 6 police in Changchun discovered that Zhang Zhongxian, a citizen of Changchun in Jilin Province, tried to purchase illegal drugs through the mail. The parcel was mailed from Henan province to a building on Renmin Street in Chaoyang District, Changchun. The police say the parcel contained 200 fake RMB 100 Yuan notes. 199 of them began with the series number HD90268302. The remaining note’s number was HD90268306.

Zhang Zhongxian said he met a woman named Ms. Wang on December 14 in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. Ms. Wang told him that she had some very high quality fake notes produced by people in Taiwan. She said could sell them for 15 Yuan each.

HD90 fake notes found in a casino in Macau

As the fake HD90 notes began circulating in China, they reached more and more mainland cities. In the second half of 2008, HD90 notes were found in casinos in Macau. According Macau police, 123 HD90 fake bills were discovered in 2008 in the former Portuguese enclave. These were mainly from mainland travelers who exchanged them for the local currency.

HD90 fake notes found in Hong Kong

At the end of 2008, Hong Kong police announced there were 7,975 fake 100 Yuan notes from mainland China.

Taxi driver exchanges HD90 fake hundred notes to passengers

The first reported case of the fake HD90 notes in Hangzhou occurred on January 6, 2009. The victim, Mr Chen, said the taxi driver cooperated with another guy to exchange 900 real RMB notes. Mr. Chen took the same taxi with a stranger (a Chinese person who claimed to not have any money) to go home. On the way, the stranger started to talk about the fake hundred Yuan notes and how they had been spreading all over China. When Mr. Chen arrived his destination, the taxi driver kept asking Mr Chen to change his notes, telling them they were either too new or too old. During this process, the taxi driver gave all of his fake notes to Mr. Chen. All the hundred Yuan notes Mr. Chen got from the taxi driver were fake. All the notes carried the same serial number: HD90269317.

HD90 notes appeared in Beijing last May. Mr. Hou said he received 1,200 notes baring the series number “HD9026”. The fake notes were from a guy who spoke a southern dialect.

According to media reports, the fake HD90 likely originated in Taiwan. On October 8 last year, a fake RMB production group was busted by Taiwan police. They had produced over 100 million dollars in fake notes. According to Taiwan police, these notes couldn’t be recognized by a bank note identifier. Sources said the group had operated for a while, so there is a high possibility some of these notes made their way into mainland China.

This story is a translation.

Source: Sina.com