Ministry of Public Security warns about the situation of buying, selling, transporting and circulating counterfeit money

The subjects often use Facebook accounts, Zalo, fanpages... to post advertising information, buying and selling counterfeit money publicly on the Internet with all denominations. Just by searching with some common keywords such as "fake money", "fake million", "polymer", "FAKE.MONEY",... social network users can easily find advertising information, selling counterfeit money.

The tricks that the subjects often use are filming and photography techniques to advertise, creating trust with consumers with content such as "buy 1 million real money to get 10 million fake money", "fake money is 99% similar to real money", "spend freely without worrying about detection" ... to defraud and appropriate people's property.

Images of social networking sites advertising and selling counterfeit money.

Those who buy and sell counterfeit money often transact through social network accounts to agree on quantity, price, transaction method and payment method; use virtual accounts and junk SIM cards to conceal their identity and background, making it difficult for investigation and handling.

The Ministry of Public Security recommends,People absolutely do not produce, store, transport, or circulatecounterfeit money, because these are acts that violate criminal law. Current laws have fully regulated and have strict sanctions on the act of buying and selling counterfeit money. When detecting counterfeit money and acts such as making, storing, transporting, circulating counterfeit money, please promptly notify the competent authorities (Police, Border Guard, Customs, etc.); at the same time, hand over the counterfeit money to the above competent authorities or the nearest State Bank for handling in accordance with the provisions of law.

Pursuant to Article 207 of the 2015 Penal Code (amended and supplemented in 2017), violators may be imprisoned from 03 to 12 years; committing a crime in cases where counterfeit money has a value equivalent to 50 million VND or more, the offender shall be imprisoned from 10 to 20 years or life imprisonment. Article 23 of the 2010 Law on the State Bank also stipulates: Counterfeiting, transporting, storing, and circulating counterfeit money are among the prohibited acts.

In addition, recently, on social networks, there has been a lot of advertising and selling of counterfeit money with many different denominations and various forms of public sale. According to the provisions of Point a, Clause 1, Article 8 and Point d, e Clause 1, Article 18 of the Law on Cyber ​​Security (effective from January 1, 2019), the act of selling counterfeit money on the Internet is one of the prohibited acts. Depending on the nature and severity of the violation, violators will be handled according to the provisions of law.