RIYADH, 7 November — The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) has cautioned the public against attempts by some gangs to forge Saudi currency notes. It said the central bank, with the help of law enforcement agencies, has taken added security measures to minimize chances of forgery of the bank notes currently in circulation.
Dr. Mohammad Al-Jasir, SAMA’s deputy governor, yesterday dismissed rumors about widespread forgery of SR500 notes.
"There has been no major forgery of SR500 bills," he said, adding that it was very difficult to forge Saudi currency.
Saudi riyal bills in the denominations of 500, 200, 100, 50, 20, 10, 5 and 1 are currently in circulation.
Al-Jasir, however, said that SAMA was taking the forgery rumors seriously making all efforts to foil such attempts.
Of late, there have been several reports of currency forgery despite the security measures taken by SAMA and related government agencies. In August, an Arab expatriate was arrested while attempting to circulate forged SR100 bills in a Riyadh shopping center.
Earlier Egyptian authorities had busted a gang engaged in making fake notes of Saudi riyals and Egyptian pounds. The three-member gang was arrested in Egypt while trying to forge SR500 bills.
SAMA has warned people against dealing with unlicensed money-changers.
Dr. Al-Jasir said Saudi security and monetary officials monitor the circulation of currency and take effective measures to foil any attempt by currency forgers. "SAMA provides information on bank notes explaining their features ... to enable general public to compare these bank notes with counterfeit ones," said a brochure released by the central bank.
The bank notes, the brochure said, have "security threads", in the form of metal layers incorporated at the time of printing. In forged notes, the thread generally is a light line drawn in ink.
The bank notes have also "water marks" with latent image, which are absent in forged notes.
The metal layer is found only in SR500 and SR100 notes. The Saudi emblem can be seen if the note is held in the semi-horizontal position and the name of the king reappears if the note is returned to its normal position. In counterfeit notes, both the king’s name and insignia appear together or only one of them.
The front of SR500 bill depicts the Holy Ka’aba on the left side of the note with the title Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency appearing on the top left-hand side in Arabic.
The portrait of the late King Abdul Aziz is in the center of the note and the value appears in Arabic at the central base position. When viewing the note semi-horizontally, the Saudi emblem — the crossed swords and the palm tree — can be seen.
