A Mandarin speaking Nigerian man was arrested in Yau Ma Tei earlier this week for attempting to use a counterfeit HKD1,000 note. The 43-year-old man, apparently a regular customer of sex workers in Yau Ma Tei, has reportedly paid with fake HKD1,000 notes on four occasions.
Apple Daily reports that the sex workers noticed the bills were made up of two pieces of inkjet-printed paper which had been glued together (apparently a very common method of counterfeiting), and had circulated the information within the community.
A Sing Tao Daily report (as translated by EJInsight) reports that, the customer visited a sex worker on Shanghai Street at 2am on Tuesday who recognised him from her friends’ descriptions. Apparently the prostitute then covertly asked her friends to notify the police, who seized a counterfeit HKD1,000 note as evidence.
Apple Daily reports that the police have received many reports of prostitutes being given counterfeit money and various other currencies, such as Zimbabwean dollars and Peruvian nuevo sol, which are similar in colour to HKD1,000 notes and HKD500 notes, respectively.
Zi Teng, a non-governmental organisation set up to help sex workers, has been providing tips on how to spot counterfeit money, and warning workers not to accept foreign currency to avoid getting stiffed.
Photo: (For illustration) Flickr
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