South Sudan arrests suspect who had counterfeit money machines

By Benjamin Takpiny

JUBA, South Sudan (AA) - The national security agency in South Sudan arrested a suspect Thursday who had a machine used to print counterfeit money.

National Security Services Director for Public Relations David John Kumuri said the male suspect was arrested in one of the hotels in Juba and he had illegal cash worth $111,000.

“The surveillance team today has successfully managed to apprehend a machine for printing counterfeit dollars and one hundred and eleven thousand dollars,” Kumuri told reporters.

It follows the arrest last week of two foreigners and 12 South Sudanese nationals who had fake notes worth $93 million and 400,000 South Sudanese pounds.

Kumuri did not link the suspect arrested Thursday to the 14 who were arrested earlier but said papers for printing counterfeit notes were brought from East Africa to South Sudan.

“This machine has been used by criminals to print counterfeit dollars, and today we want to inform the public that the national security has apprehended a machine for printing counterfeit dollars,” he said. “We are unable to disclose the name of this criminal because it is very sensitive, but very soon we will disclose the identity of these criminals once the investigation is complete.”

He said that there are other counterfeit machines in Juba.

“This is not the only machine. I am sure there are many machines because if you see the number of the dollars we apprehended last week, it was 93 million dollars and previously we also collected 2 million dollars,” said Kumuri.