Beware: forged money in circulation

The Forged Money Investigation Unit of the CID claims forging money goes on in spate. According to the CID, 17 cases were reported in 2009 alone and six of them were discovered by the Forged Money Investigation Unit of the CID.
The police had found forged notes worth Rs 1,000,000 - 1,500,000. In those 17 cases alone as the officers interrogated the suspects arrested, they found that notes worth over 10 million rupees had been released for circulation.
According to the CID, racketeers mostly print Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes and when the Rs 2000 note was introduced, they printed that too.
The latest incident concerning this racket is connected to the new ‘Ranaviru Upahara’ Rs 1000 note which is blue in colour and has a picture of President Mahinda Rajapaksa on it. The note was released by the Central Bank about three months back and is now in circulation. This note which contains a number of security attributes and signs has been forged by a young man who had just finished his schooling. Three other young men were involved in distributing the forged notes and one of them was to sit for the G.C.E A/L this year.
It was a group of police officers from Fort police station that made the discovery of the racket. According to information received by a police officer from Fort police station, two young men with three forged thousand notes were arrested near the Fort Railway Station.
The tip had been given by a shop owner nearby. The two young men had bought an item from the shop and tried to pay with a forged note. But the shop owner, who was suspicious, didn’t accept the note and informed the police. That was how the two young men were initially apprehended by police near the railway station.
Malith Sudantha Jayasingha, 23-years-old from Ratmalana and 19-year-old Suresh Dilhan Nanayakkara were arrested with the forged notes. Malith had passed his G.C.E A/Ls and was in the chilly powder business. Suresh was to sit for his A/Ls this time in the Arts stream.
They were arrested on 30th December and were handed over to CID’s special unit on forged money, since that was where experts on the subject worked.
Officers then discovered that the key player in the game was in Maharagama and that he had given 15 forged notes to the two young men. The officers traced the other 12 notes to the houses of two young men. 21-year-old Priyankarage Malaka Madusanka, master mind of the racket was subseqently arrested. He had passed his A/Ls and had obtained a diploma in computing. He had a newspaper distributing agency at his home and was well off.

Develop newspaper agency

CID officers arrested him on 30th December night along with 58 forged thousand notes. The officers also found the computer and other equipment used for forging along with 78 paper rolls used for printing. 244 notes had been printed on such paper.
Apart from the two young men arrested by the Fort police station, Malaka Madusanka had used several other young men for distributing the notes he forged.
One of them was 23 year old Hewaralalage Ajith Kumara. He was a bus conductor and had been given 10 forged thousand notes for exchange. He had already changed six notes and the other four were traced by the CID.
When the CID officers questioned Malaka Madusanka he had said that he forged money when his parents refused to give him money to develop his newspaper agency. He had decided to print the new Rs.1000 note as it was still new and it was difficult to identify a fake one from a real one.
At first he had printed only 100 notes as samples. He had planned to print more and distribute --- depending on his initial success.
Forged notes had been distributed in the areas of Maharagama, Piliyandala and Pettah. The Maharagama weekly fair had been a centre for changing these notes. The young man who printed the notes and the three young men who distributed them had got to know each other at the Maharagama Youth Council.

- GKW