By Vanessa Cavasinni, editor Australian Hotelier
Incidences of counterfeit notes have become increasingly common in the last couple of years, and hoteliers across the country have had to deal with fraudulent notes circulating within their venues.
John Green, Director of Liquor and Policing for AHA NSW, has noted several incidents of counterfeit notes in New South Wales pubs recently.
“In the last twelve months there have been isolated incidents of counterfeit currency being presented in diverse areas such as the Illawarra, the Hunter, the north coast and central Sydney,” he states.
There are some indicators that suggest a note is not quite right, and is therefore counterfeit. Green has found a couple of discrepancies among counterfeit notes to look out for.
“In recent occasions, this has included counterfeit $50 notes being a brighter yellow, and ‘failing the scrunch test’ – not coming back to a flat structure after scrunching up the note, and portions of the paint work flaking.”
If you suspect that there are counterfeit notes being used within your premises, hotel staff should:
– Contact State or Federal police as soon as it is safe to do so
– Secure the suspected counterfeit notes for police to forensically examine
– Try to minimise the amount of handling of the forged notes
– Download any CCTV footage of the possible offenders to aid police investigation.
More information on this procedure can be found here.