NATIONAL
Customs officials from Uganda Revenue Authority on Thursday seized counterfeit money which was being smuggled into the country via a modern coast bus at the Uganda-Kenya border in Busia.
The bus registration number KDA 155X was intercepted following a manual cross check of a conspicuous package that had earlier been declared only to find Ugandan shilling currency notes stashed in the package.
When officers opened the package, notes of various denominations of Shs10,000 and 5000 were found carefully hidden amounting to UGX 40,845,000.
Moses Amwine,URA customs officer said the load was thought to be a case of failure to declare but upon verification turned out to be counterfeit.
“On the face of it, we thought the offence of failure to declare cash was in the bag, but while counting, the notes looked a little odd and slippery. This is when we sought assistance from the inhouse DTB bank whose hi-tech machine discovered that all the money was indeed fake,” he recounted.
Three suspects have since been arrested and the bus seized. The law on prohibited goods provides for a fine of 50% of the value of items and in case of counterfeit notes, the penalty is imprisonment for the suspect.
Similarly, Sec 199 of the East African community Customs Act of 2004 sets a fine of not more than USD 5,000 for such means of conveyance, in this case the modern coast bus.
The tax regulatory body (URA) says it will continue to employ measures to counter tactics from economic saboteurs such that cause artificial inflation to the country’s economy.
