A plastics factory worker and his roommate were arrested Monday for production and possession of counterfeit banknotes, which they confessed to creating by photocopying authentic Thai baht notes onto standard A4-sized paper.
Supan Bajongpru, 36, and Rames Kankiri, 26, were arrested after undercover police convinced the haphazard duo to sell them some of the bogus baht, Daily News reported.
Police nabbed Supan in Bang Khen district in possession of five counterfeit 1,000-baht notes and 30 counterfeit 100-baht notes, Capt. Pirachad Kumsang said. When police went to search his residence in Samut Sakhon province, they discovered Rames in the room along with a home printer/photocopy machine.
Supan confessed that he didn’t use any special technique to produce the fake fliff, but simply through trial-and-error copied authentic money onto A4 paper, resulting in notes that looked real and were “very difficult to spot at night,” police said.
He said that he used old banknotes, to add a touch of authenticity, and used pink paper for the 100-baht variety and white paper for the 1,000-baht notes. The suspects would then trim the excess paper off the notes and pass them at convenience stores and use them to pay taxi fares, he said.
Supan added that he began selling the fake notes to support his drug habit, and had already done so twice before. Supan and Rames have been charged with possessing and producing counterfeit money.
The Bank of Thailand has information available on their website about how to detect counterfeit notes here and here.
