Africans in counterfeit dollar case further remanded

By Lakmal Sooriyagoda

An African couple held in remand custody on charges of having more than 450 counterfeit US Dollar notes in their possession were ordered to be further remanded till 9 January, by a Colombo Court yesterday.

When the case came up before Colombo Fort Magistrate Kanishka Wijeratne, the CID informed Court that the investigations into the incident had not been completed yet and moved that the African couple be further remanded.

Meanwhile, Defence Counsel who appeared for the African couple denied the allegations levelled against his clients and alleged that a Sri Lankan had been directly involved in the incident and he was yet to be arrested. Having heard both parties’ arguments, the Magistrate ordered that the two suspects be remanded till 9 January.    Lodging a complaint with the CID, Inspector Nadeeka Tharanga Silva of the Special Task Force (STF) stated that they had received information about a foreign couple arriving at a five-star hotel in Colombo with counterfeit notes. The STF arrested the suspects – Hurgue Marcial, a Cameroon national, and Toure Aichaou, a Mali national – on arrival at the hotel and seized more than 450 counterfeit US$ 100 notes, along with a stock of 44,200 blank papers, the same dimensions as the US$ 100 bill. They also discovered two digital safe lockers hidden inside the car.

The CID said they were conducting further investigations to locate the printing machine believed to have been used in the racket. The prosecutors further charged that the suspects had allegedly committed a punishable offence coming under Section 478 (C) and they could be indicted in the High Court.

The prosecutors moved to Court that the suspects be remanded since they had committed a serious offence.