The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 43, October 9, 2005, Article 11

HOLDERS OF $MILLION BILLS ARRESTED

In India, owners of novelty U.S. "million dollar" notes are
finding themselves pursued by police for merely possessing them.
The following is from an article published today in a Kashmir
newspaper about "two cases in which a million-dollar note
was recovered. ”But does this note exist?” asks a senior
officer in JK Bank’s International Banking Division: “Not actually."

"But that does not affect the police that continue to chase these
fakes knowing fully well that no bank can accept it. This is the
proverbial ignorance that does not make police to stop making
victims.

It was in May 2002 when Delhi Police arrested Altaf Ahmad
Wani, a shawl-vendor when he was on his way home to
Zainakote Srinagar. He was found carrying a million-dollar note.
When journalist Iftikhar Gilani, the author of ‘My Days In Prison’,
one of the Penguin India recent hits, met Wani in Tihar, he told
him: “I purchased it from a vendor thinking I will keep it in a glass
frame and keep it in my house as symbol of good luck.” But the
fake proved a bad omen; he is still in the jail.

Says IGP Kashmir Javed Mukhdoomi: “After I got the note with
the certificate to my office, I rang up American embassy in Delhi.
They said this is fake, there is nothing like that in USA.” But police
would not let the “accused” go. They are actually hunting for a
bank manager as well. They are being charge sheeted under
section 420."

"But who will tell the police forces that no real million-dollar bill
exists. It is not an official USA note manufactured by the bureau
of engraving and printing (BEP) and it is not redeemable by the
department of the treasury. The largest denomination ever printed
was $100,000 carrying the portrait of President Woodrow
Wilson in 1934."

To read the full story, see: Full Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

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