Sharjah: Police have arrested an Arab man who was in the possession of Dh38,000 in counterfeit bank notes.
The Arab national was arrested at Sharjah International Airport when he entered the emirate while on transit to a neighbouring country.
During interrogation, the suspect initially denied the allegations and told police that he exchanged the bank notes for American dollars at a money exchange back in his home country.
However, police officials said they believed that the man was lying because dirhams are not distributed legally in his country of origin.
The police say they found out during the interrogation that the transit passenger's destination was a neighbouring country which uses its own currency as well as dirhams.
Sharjah Police alleged that the suspect intended to travel to that country with the fake currency.
They alleged that this would have made it easier to put the counterfeit notes into circulation.
The case has been transferred to the Sharjah Public Prosecution.
Police warn residents to be vigilant when accepting money from commercial outlets as criminals are always on the lookout to target naive people who do not seem to notice the difference between original or counterfeit bank notes.
