South Sudan national security seizes counterfeit machine, arrest one suspect

JUBA — The surveillance team of South Sudan’s National Security (NSS) on Thursday arrested a man in possession of a machine for counterfeiting money worth millions of dollars, according to a NSS media official.

Last week, National Security Service arrest 14 members of a criminal network in Juba in connection with the circulation of 93 million counterfeit U.S dollars and 400,000 South Sudanese Pounds.

On 26 January this year, Liberian, S. Sudanese men were arrested by Internal Security Bureau for also circulating almost 2 million fake US dollars.

Speaking to reporters in Juba this afternoon, David John Kumuri, National Security Director for Public Relation said the surveillance team has finally managed to seize counter machine used for printing fake money worth million of U.S dollars in the country.

“The surveillance team today has successfully managed to apprehend a machine for counterfeiting the United States dollars and one hundred and eleven thousand United States dollars from these criminals,” Kumuri told reporters yesterday in Juba.

Kumuri said they have arrested one suspect in one of the hotels in Juba in possession of a counterfeit machine and cash worth 1, 11,000 U.S dollars.

“This machine has been used by criminals to counterfeit fake dollars and today we want to inform the people that the national security has apprehended machine for counterfeiting dollars,” he said.

“They brought papers for printing fake United States dollars from Uganda in Kenya using this machine that we have apprehended today with one criminal from one of the hotels around Juba,” he added.

National Security media official said the identity of the suspect will only be disclosed when an investigation is complete.

“We are unable to disclose the name of this crime because it is very sensitive, they are behind counterfeiting U.S dollars but very soon we will disclose the identity of these criminals once the investigation is complete,” he said.

He said they are tracing more counterfeit machines that are being hidden in houses.

“This is not the only machine, I am sure there are many machines because if you see the number of the dollars we have apprehended last week, it was 93 million U.S dollars, and previously, we also arrested 2  million U.S dollars. This is not the only machine; there are a lot of machines,” he said.