Customer passes off ‘million yen bill’ as real money at grocery store

10 years ago | Posted in: Japan, World | 1072 Views

Lest you think that you missed the announcement that Japan has issued a new currency, a “million yen bill” was allegedly passed off as a 10,000 yen bill at a grocery shop in Aeon Mall Morioka-Minami. Iwate Prefecture police are now looking into the case as a possible forgery case.

The cashier at the grocery did not notice that the bill she was handed had the portrait of Yukichi Fukuzawa, the iconic Japanese author featured on the authentic 10,000 yen (about US$100) bill, smirking. The staff discovered the fake money later that day at 4:00 PM and reported it to the police. They said they did not notice it when they made the cursory check at 1:00 PM, and between then and when the fake note was discovered, around seven customers had used 10,000yen bills to pay for their purchases. The “million yen bill” (equal to a US$10,000 bill), which doesn’t actually exist, is said to be slightly smaller than the real 10,000 note and the reverse side is blank. The front says “Luxury Bank Note” and “million yen” and the portrait of “Luxury Yukichi.”

The fake sticky note money is believed to have come from an Osaka-based packaging company that produced it for fun. Even though they had already stopped producing it when someone tried to pass it off as real money in October of last year, they continued to sell the remaining stock. After this latest incident, the company said they will stop selling them altogether. Technically, the company could be charged under the Act on Control of Imitation of Currency and Securities, but there is no clear standard as to what can be called a misleading product, according to the Financial Bureau at the Ministry of Finance.

source: Japandailypress

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