Bogus US$1.0M seized in poor barrio was top quality

Santo Domingo.- The counterfeit US$1.0 million seized by the National Police from the group arrested in the poor National District barrio was of such quality that only a professional in U.S. currency could detect it.

National Police forgery department investigator Edwin Luna Kunhardt yesterday said the counterfeiters sought to print two million dollars.

"It had to be someone familiar with dollars, the average person wouldn’t know them to be false, it is fortunate that we acted in time and they were still in the printing process and had yet to circulate them, because their intention was to forge two million dollars."

He revealed that even the bills’ security features were forged with rudimentary methods, “such as the use of a grate to give them the rough texture on Benjamin Franklin bust and the word dollar, and the use of holographic paint at the number 100, which changes color.”

Neighbors surprised

For the neighbors of the print shop on Montecristi St., in the poor barrio San Carlos the raid came as a surprise. They say the business had been there a long time, where many people come and go in luxury vehicles to get jobs done.

"There were trusted people working there. The manager Tomas Ortiz came to store ice in my fridge, he’s a man who has his family, said the neighbor Dora Diez de la Concha. “Lately he kept the key and didn’t allow anyone to enter, the door was tightly shut and many luxury cars arrived, we thought they came to order work, because during the (electoral) campaign he did a lot of propaganda and many things."