Counterfeit money does not bring happiness

I would like to dedicate my speech to the issue related to the manufacturing, storage, or distribution of counterfeit money and the responsibility incurred for committing these acts.

With the development of computer technology, many citizens are tempted to produce counterfeit money using technical means, which they subsequently use for payments for goods and services. In this process, national or foreign currency can be counterfeited in whole or in part, including making changes to genuine banknotes by altering their denomination and other details to give them a different nominal value.

Distribution includes any method of transferring counterfeit money to other people. These can include: sale, gift, exchange, payment for services.

Committing a crime related to the manufacturing, storage, or distribution of counterfeit money is classified as a grave offense, and if committed repeatedly, by an organized group, or on a particularly large scale, it is classified as an especially grave offense.

In 2015, law enforcement agencies in the Vitebsk region detected 79 crimes related to the manufacturing, storage, or distribution of counterfeit money, and in the 5 months of 2016, there were 43 such crimes.

The Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus provides for criminal liability for committing the specified actions. For a first-time offense, the punishment is imprisonment for up to 2 to 7 years with or without confiscation of property. For repeated actions, it is imprisonment for 5 to 15 years with confiscation of property. Criminal liability arises regardless of the nominal value of the counterfeit banknote produced.

I want to warn citizens who, for various reasons, find themselves in possession of counterfeit money. Do not attempt to distribute them to other persons in the hope that the counterfeit nature of the banknotes will not be detected during distribution. The detection of counterfeit banknotes is a matter of time, and the statute of limitations for prosecuting this crime is from

10 to 15 years. To avoid criminal liability for possessing counterfeit money, the absence of intent to sell it is necessary. And to confirm this, it is necessary to voluntarily surrender the counterfeit money to law enforcement agencies. In case of selling knowingly counterfeit money, a measure of restraint in the form of detention is usually chosen for the guilty person during the investigation period, and the court sentence imposes a punishment in the form of imprisonment. As an example, I will cite the materials of a criminal case, the investigation of which was conducted in the first half of 2016 by the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus for the Vitebsk region against 4 citizens of the city of Vitebsk, who, from November 2015 to April 2016, possessed counterfeit US dollars with the intent to sell them and repeatedly sold these dollars to citizens for Belarusian rubles at a rate lower than the official rate set by banks, and used them to pay for taxi rides. Genuine five-dollar bills were used for counterfeiting, in which the denomination of the bill was changed from 5 to 50 using the screen printing method, as well as the name of the President of the USA. It should be noted the high quality of counterfeiting of the bills in appearance, which allowed them to be repeatedly sold to citizens. At the same time, with proper inspection of the bills, their counterfeit nature could have been established even during the sale. For this, it was necessary to pay attention to the security thread, which had the inscription "five dollars," and that a fifty-dollar bill should have a portrait of US President Grant, not Lincoln. A measure of restraint in the form of detention was chosen for the guilty persons during the preliminary investigation of the criminal case, and currently the criminal case has been sent by the regional prosecutor's office to the court of the Pervomaisky district of Vitebsk for substantive consideration.

Senior Prosecutor of the Department for Supervision
over the Enforcement of Legislation
of the Investigative Committee Department
of the Republic of Belarus for the Vitebsk Region Vladimir Vasiliev.