“And I only changed his money after a long chat and after calling a currency exchange office in Baghdad,” al-Zaidi says “I even inserted his money into the counterfeit money detector and it accepted it.”
“Unfortunately, while these devices can detect counterfeits, they cannot tell you that it is no longer being used. In fact I only realized that the man’s money was no longer valid a few days later,” al-Zaidi exclaims.
Happily Karbala police have been able to arrest members of the “Polish currency gang”. The local Financial Crimes Unit recently jailed three men of Turkish origin after catching them in the act at a local money exchanger. “The men had large amounts of US dollars on their persons,” says Ahmed Umran of the Karbala police communications department. The police are now advising money changers to install surveillance equipment in their stores and to avoid customers who cannot provide proof of residency.
“There are a lot of foreign crooks here and they come to Karbala under the pretext of visiting the holy sites but they’re here for something else altogether. And some of them are extremely professional,” says Yasser Ulwan, another of Karbala’s money changers who’s been in the business for almost nine years now. “For instance, one Iranian thief managed to rob me of US$3,600 in a particularly tricky way.”
“It happened while we were counting out US dollars he wanted to change. He managed to hide some of the bank notes in his sleeves but I swear his hands never even left the table,” Ulwan explains.
Obviously counterfeiting, fraud and thievery is something that money changers all around the world are concerned about. But it seems that recently in Karbala things have been getting worse and more “wild west”. The success of the Polish currency gang, until they were apprehended, has led to confusion and paranoia in Karbala’s marketplaces.
Many of the money changers are becoming more and more reluctant to work with foreigners, says Mohammed Fadel, another local currency specialist.
“Counterfeits are not confined to just one currency,” he notes. “This whole exercise has taught us not just to check the actual bank notes but also to be aware of their status within their own countries. That’s why we’re rapidly becoming experts in international financial history,” he concluded with some irony.
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