South Sudanese national arrested at Malaba border with fake dollar printing material

Uganda Revenue Authority officers have arrested a South Sudanese national with material used to print fake dollar notes.

According to the Public and Corporate affairs manager at URA, Ian Rumanyika ,Duach Chuol Kaylech Toang, a Sudanese national as just a normal traveler crossing Malaba One-Stop Border Post by bus from Kenya to Uganda.

“His final destination was South Sudan through Uganda. As is the norm, travelers crossing the border are checked and so is their hand luggage. One by one, their hand luggage went through the non- intrusive hand luggage scanner at the border without a problem until it was the turn for Duach’s luggage,”Rumanyika said.

“ The scanner picked up something uncanny which prompted the team to physically inspect the luggage. They found bundles of papers the size of a dollar and some liquid among other things.”

The URA spokesman explained that on face value, these were just papers but upon application of the liquid contained in the suspect’s luggage, the papers turned into fake dollars prompting them to take action.

“Immediately the suspect was arrested and he is set to face the law.”

Rumanyika underscored the use of non-intrusive inspection technology that he said is a powerful tool against smuggling.

“Facilitation of legitimate trade and protection of society from harmful products are two of customs core mandates and as such the introduction of fake dollars into our economy is intolerable,”Rumanyika said.

Speaking during the State of the Nation Address in 2018, President Museveni emphasized the need to for more scanners at all border posts to help curb smuggling.

“We shall acquire new scanners for Uganda Revenue Authority to apprehend people smuggling illegal stuff such as weapons. The scanners we have are not enough,”Museveni said.

Speaking at the opening of the Busia One-Stop Border Post in the same year, Museveni said there is need to close all the loopholes used by smugglers.

“I was smuggling weapons through this border. You should have scanners because we are working on putting more monitoring stations. We shall have a lake Victoria monitoring plan too We need eyes to see what is happening on the lake,” he said in February 2018.

URA has in the past three years installed Non-Intrusive Inspection (NII) scanners at border points to help curb smuggling and have done a commendable job.