Two men jailed for roles in counterfeit money scheme

SINGAPORE — Two men were today (Feb 3) jailed three years each by the district court for their roles in a counterfeit money scheme. They are the final two to be sentenced, following four others who have already been dealt with.

Odd-job workers Adi Soffian Bakhtiar Effendi and Fauzi Mohammad — both 22 years old — admitted to being accomplices in the scheme to forge and use 24 fake S$1,000 notes.

The scheme was hatched by Abdul Adziz Asmon, then an operations assistant with marine service agency Nautical Trade, who was eventually jailed six years and seven months in October last year.

The court heard that in 2012, the six involved in the scheme tried to create the fake notes using a scanner, transparencies, paper and eggs. The egg white was spread onto the counterfeit notes to give them a crisp texture, mimicking that of real Singapore currency.

The tasks were divided among the six involved.

As for the pair sentenced today, Adi scanned the genuine currency notes and printed the counterfeit ones, while Fauzi used a paper cutter to cut the fake notes to the correct size.

The notes were forged at a chalet in Costa Sands Resort at Jalan Loyang Besar.

The crime was discovered when Abdul Aziz used the fakes when handing S$30,000 to a supplier, who eventually called Nautical Trade to complain.

The pair could have been jailed up to 20 years and fined for the offences. CHANNEL NEWSASIA