Muscat - The Sultanate of Oman has been strengthening security measures, prevention, and community awareness to combat the crime of counterfeiting and circulating currency.
Counterfeiting and circulating currency is a serious crime that undermines the pillars of the national economy, shakes confidence in the financial system, and leads significantly and directly to an increase in inflation, damages the economy, and increases crimes related to this crime, such as fraud, swindling, and money laundering.
Brigadier Jamal bin Habib Al Quraishi, Director General of Criminal Investigations at the Royal Oman Police (ROP), said that the police have harnessed all their energies and capabilities to confront various crimes, including counterfeiting currency crimes, and reduce their risks to the individual and society, noting that this type of crime is still at normal levels and does not constitute any criminal phenomenon that calls for concern, but it is necessary to raise awareness of its risks and the criminal activities associated with it or resulting from it.
He added that during the first half of this year, no reports or counterfeit currency operations were detected within the Sultanate of Oman, but the most common thing is the promotion of counterfeit currency through the use of several fraudulent methods such as fake commercial advertisements that include fictitious offers to exchange counterfeit foreign currencies for Omani riyals at a very attractive value, which prompts some who have a desire to achieve quick wealth to respond to these offers without verifying their credibility or verifying the legality of the currencies they will obtain, only to discover later that they have fallen victim to fraud.
He stated that among the criminal methods related to currency counterfeiting crimes that this General Administration has monitored is the promotion of exchanging foreign currencies that are not counterfeit but have been suspended in the countries in which they were issued.
Some people fall into the trap of this fraudulent method when dealing with untrustworthy people as a result of them presenting tempting offers to exchange currencies, only to discover later that they have been the victim of fraud and that the currencies they have are worthless and cannot be exchanged in exchange offices.
He said that official documents issued by the state, such as passports, cards, and paper currencies, contain many technical security features to protect them from organized forgery and fraud crimes.
The Director General of Criminal Investigation and Research at the Royal Oman Police stated that this cooperation includes the exchange of information and expertise and providing law enforcement agencies with the necessary tools and methods to detect and investigate counterfeit currencies, in addition to enrolling members of law enforcement agencies in many specialized training courses and programs.
He pointed out that the Omani laws addressed the crimes of forgery in Article (175) of the Penal Code, which states: “Anyone who counterfeits, forges, or falsifies in any way a paper or metal currency legally circulating in the country or another country, or counterfeits national public bonds or promotes any of them with knowledge of that, shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than 5 years and not more than 15 years.”
The article also stipulated a prison sentence of not less than 10 years if that resulted in a decline in the price of the national currency or bonds or a disruption of credit in domestic or foreign markets.
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