N.S. RCMP, border agents seize more than $100,000 in counterfeit Canadian cash
More than $100,000 of counterfeit Canadian money has been seized by authorities as part of an investigation that began in Quebec and led authorities to a home in Cape Breton, RCMP say.
The Canada Border Services Agency notified Nova Scotia RCMP after intercepting packages shipped to Canada from China at Mirabel airport in Quebec and a processing facility in Mississauga, Ont., in January.
The first package contained counterfeit holographic stickers that resembled the security strips on Canadian cash and the second package had a variety of denominations totalling roughly $30,000 in counterfeit currency, said an RCMP news release Wednesday.
Police said both packages were destined for an address in Glace Bay, N.S.
Mounties and Cape Breton Regional Police officers executed a search warrant at a Glace Bay residence on Feb. 11 and recovered about $70,000 in counterfeit money, RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Mitch Thompson told CBC News.
Mounties found several different denominations of bills. The RCMP encourages people to visit the Bank of Canada's website to learn how to verify a bank note's security features. (RCMP)
A number of other items considered "instruments" of counterfeiting, such as electronic devices, were found at the home along with a rifle, Thompson said.
The investigation is ongoing and charges are expected to be laid soon, he said.
RCMP encourage people accepting cash to verify its authenticity by checking the security features on the bills.
Counterfeit money may not seem like a significant issue to everyone, Thompson said, but it can have negative effects on individuals and businesses because they can't be reimbursed if they unknowingly receive fake bank notes.
"These businesses are not only out the product that they are providing people, but they're also out the income for that product," Thompson said. "So it's kind of like a double whammy for them."
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Karima Manji, who is not Indigenous, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud over $5,000, after her twin daughters used fake Inuit status to receive Karima Manji, who is not Indigenous, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud over $5,000, after her twin daughters used fake Inuit status to receive 'The true victims of Ms. Manji's crime are the Inuit of Nunavut,' Iqaluit judge Mia Manocchio wrote . Manji 'defrauded the Inuit of Nunavut by stealing their identity. She has further victimized the Noah family and the memory of Kitty Noah. This is an egregious example of the exploitation of Indigenous Peoples.' 'Finally,' Manocchio continued, 'Ms. Manji has victimized her own children, her two daughters, whose lives and careers have been severely compromised by her fraud.' 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Manji said she is appalled by the hurt she caused not only to Inuit communities, but to her own children, 'especially Nadya.' (The girls have an older brother.) While serving some of her sentence at Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Manji said it would take weeks to read her daughter's letters, because 'I just feel so awful.' Unprompted, Manji offers up an explanation for her actions: She was brought up in a strict, conservative family and believed that if you were a doctor, lawyer or engineer, 'you would do fine in life.' She had an unhappy upbringing and marriage and wanted to make sure her kids didn't go through that. 'If I made sure they were successful in terms of their education and career, that they wouldn't have to have gone through what I've gone through,' she says.
