2 bogus C-notes surface
BILLS ARE POOR QUALITY, COPS SAY
By IAN ROBERTSON, TORONTO SUN

THE FIRST counterfeits of Canada's latest anti-forgery bank notes have surfaced near Toronto, police said yesterday. Two $100 bills bearing the portrait of former prime minister Robert Borden were found seven days apart in Huntsville and Peel Region, OPP Const. Harry Rawluk said.

Both notes were apparently computer-printed, had the same serial number and were such poor quality that clerks should have spotted them, he said.

What set the fakes apart from the flood of forged $100 bills that prompted stores across Ontario to refuse Canada's highest-denomination circulating note several years ago, is the fake metallic security strips attached to the surfaces.

Fake security devices on counterfeit notes "puts retailers at risk because they were reluctant to accept older $100 bills and now these new-style counterfeits have appeared," Rawluk told the Toronto Sun from his Huntsville office.

"It will undermine their confidence again."

The vertical strip doesn't change colour on the fakes, and lacks a watermark image of Borden's face.

It is also missing the see-through lettering that forms the numeral "100" when viewed front to back.

The Bank of Canada introduced the new hundreds with great fanfare, followed last year by new $50 and $20 bills also fitted with metallic strips, watermarks and security thread. Metallic strips and watermarks are being added to $10 bills, which are to start circulating this May.

The dud $100 bill in Huntsville was passed at a Tim Hortons coffee shop.

When OPP officers checked Canada's national police information data bank, Rawluk said the only other reported fake had been passed on Feb. 21 in Peel Region.

Rawluk said the RCMP, which investigates counterfeiting across the country, will be notified about the phony notes