Yucatan businesses suffer losses from increased use of counterfeit bills

The 100, 200 and 500 peso bills are the most falsified; this requires businesses to ‘verify’ the money they receive.

MERIDA — The increase in the use of counterfeit bills in Yucatan, and particularly in Merida, has caused thousands of pesos in losses to local merchants.

A statement from the Bank of Mexico warned about the circulation of counterfeits bills of 100 pesos that were issued for the commemoration of the Centenary of the Political Constitution of 1917.

This bank recognizes that “there are falsified bills and we have received papers in the Bank of Mexico that try to imitate the authentic.” The complaints have come from about 20 federal entities, most of them coming from Mexico City.

The institution says that the criminals have achieved such perfection in their work that now it is harder to prove the bills’ authenticity through the conventional ways; it is necessary to check more carefully the bills to be sure of their authenticity.

He recalled that during last Easter, the use of fake banknotes increased in the entity, mainly those of 200 and 500 pesos.

During talks with other business partners they have learned that false bills of 100, 200 and 500 pesos have already been detected prior to the holiday period of July and August, so he recommended to all entrepreneurs to verify the authenticity of the bills.

To prove the bills’ authenticity businesses use “The Marker Test,” which consists in drawing a line on the bills using a special marker that works with iodine, then if the line turns black the bills are false, if it does nothing then the bills are good to use. But the counterfeiters have already over-passed the marker test because they are already using other chemicals, explained Góngora Paz, a local businessman. He regretted that this type of crime ended up affecting them financially and placing them along with those thieves, because when an entrepreneur deposits the falsified bills in the bank, the institution assumes it as an attempt of fraud so the person could be registered as a possible criminal.

Source: laverdadnoticias.com